Since my inaugural Infernal Dispatch a week ago, I have found time to write almost every day. The only exception was yesterday, when I took a day off to go see The Shape of Water and play more Fire Emblem Warriors.*
(The Shape of Water: it was really good! Guillermo del Toro consistently tells the types of stories that I want to tell, too: the monstrous turned familiar, the familiar turned monstrous, and goodness triumphant over human evil. Also, it had a sexy monster lizardman in it! What isn’t to like???)
Today, I finished the first draft of my succubus transformation tribute to mokushi-c3. At 2,158 words, it’s a little under half (40%) of what I wrote in all of 2017. Way to go, Devi!
It also means I’m averaging about 300 words a day. That isn’t much, especially considering how much time I’ve spent “writing” in the past week (read: browsing the internet, posting on twitter, what have you). I want to write more each day, but the answer won’t be finding more time; it’ll be using the time I am writing more efficiently.
Again, though, I’m not going to focus on any negative. I have been able to consistently write, a little bit every day, and that’s the real victory. I’m also not going to beat myself up for spending time chatting with internet friends like @walkingawoken. That’s part of the fun and part of the motivation! I’m putting in the time and effort, laying bricks toward achieving a bigger goal. I couldn’t be prouder of myself.
Next on the docket is actually editing my succubus tribute. I’ve never been able to follow the conventional wisdom of “just write, then edit later.” I spend a lot of time tweaking sentences, trying to nail the perfect transition to the next paragraph, each word building on what came before. On the one hand, that means my first drafts aren’t completely unedited messes. On the other hand, it means that my first drafts are completely unedited messes, but I’ve spent so long, so close to the text that I can’t see how bad it is. I’m probably going to set it aside for a little bit and edit it when a day or two’s reprieve gives me better perspective. (I say probably; there’s a good chance I’ll leave Starbucks, go home, and edit it there.)
Second: remember how I mentioned writing a shared universe for my monster girl stories? Well, the next story I’ve brainstormed will be the first one set in that universe. It won’t have explicit transformation or corruption scenes, but I think my readers will find much in the story they do like. I’ve initially entitled it The Assassination of Innocence, and it involves a demoness attempting to (well what else?) assassinate a high priestess and getting far, far more than she bargained for. It’ll be something new for me, with some world building and some fight scenes. We’ll see how it goes!
* Spoiler alert: I want to know more about the Fire Emblem universes so I can write some l e w d fanfic! whoops!