I did some math today.
Surprising, huh?
I decided to calculate the number of words I have written and NOT PUBLISHED. Yep. The number above represents the total words contained in a collection of 26 novellas and short stories that I wrote all before I decided to embark on the journey to be published.
This isn't the sum total of everything I've ever written before the 33 titles that I have sold. This is just the adventure series I embarked on partly to entertain DH and myself back when I didn't think I had the chops to be published.
Now, everyone who is reading this is saying - well, go ahead and get those 477,131 words published! And I wish I could, but this stuff just needs so much work to make it submittable. It's a daunting task and one that I would love to be able to blink my eyes and have magically done, but one I'm still not sure I really want to put the time and effort into.
Sometimes it's easier to start new.
But these 477,131 words will always be there, in a universe I used to love to play in. And there are so many stories still not told...the question is, do I want to go back and rehash what's already been done, or move forward?
Do you have old stories gathering dust that you'd love to pull out of moth balls and submit? If so what keeps you from doing it? The amount of work involved or the desire to forge new territory and leave the past in the past?
4 comments:
No story is ever dead. If I have the time and inclination, I'll polish and fix everything I've ever written and find a place to submit it. (Well, my agent does the submitting, but you know what I mean.)
And dang, that's a lot of words!
Holy crap! That's alotta meatballs!
I've got quite a few unfinished projects where I hit a wall and never figured out how to finish them.
I am not going to do my math. Too depressing.
I think part of my problem is I'm overthinking it. If I just go in and start digging through it all, I might come up with something, but I hang myself up on silly details.
Interestingly, that's just straight computer word count. If I formatted everything and did page/word count it would probably be a whole lot more. It's hard to believe how prolific I was back when I 'didn't have time to write.' LOL
Some of my old stuff I really would like to finish. Other stuff, no way. Like that timetravel. Nope. Too much research to relearn. I even gave away the research books.
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