77: Scaling for Time & Energy
2/18/2014
Just got done transcribing Dissolutions. 32,752 words, and 107 pages over a six-day period. My reward is the carpal tunnel that’s growing nicely at the same rate as my book. I’m just glad it’s done. Three more fables and the first half will be complete.
Present-Day Reflection
8/10/2026
I never have had a good sense of how things really stand with my own work in terms of scale and structure. What I thought of 13 years ago as half of one book is now two complete books. Though I had yet to go back and rewrite them both, where what was then only Part One was to expand by hundreds of pages as I fleshed it all out. Especially the Ghost Frog chapters, which were still left as entirely unwritten backstory at that point.
Even today, though I keep referring to the Batu Saga as a four-book epic, I actually have a detailed scene outline for 16 books. I’ve yet to decide how much of that I want to include in the remaining two books of my 4-book plan, however. The 16-book outline was condensed and reimagined when I transformed what I was calling scenes into chapters, and I realized how long it was taking to write these books.
Though I don’t mind working on the series for the remainder of my life, and I’m in no particular hurry to finish them (getting it done right always taking priority over speed), at my current rate of production the estimated remainder of my life wouldn’t be enough to get 14 more books done. Not while my economic status keeps me working a day job that consumes more than half my waking hours and 90% of my energy. That’s time and energy spent on paying the bills instead of on what matters most to me – my writing.
Four books are much more realistic within the timeframe of the rest of my life. However, if my first book takes off after I begin to market it, and my economic status allows me to retire and become a full-time writer again – as I was 13 years ago – who knows what I might be able to accomplish?
As it is though, my four-book forecast is based entirely on the life situation and schedule I have to work with right now.
