I Have a Collection of Essays
As I said I would on the weekend, I finally got down to it and looked at what I accomplished in 12 weeks, between July and October. If you're not familiar, the goal was to write a series of essays about epilepsy for the purpose of collecting into a book.
Initially the plan was to have a first draft manuscript - but I quickly realized that was too much to cram into 12 weeks given everything I needed to do on top of other life commitments. So, I revised the plan to simply have at minimum first drafts of essays on various topics. After that, I'd start a new plan later on that would involve editing/revising/putting together a first draft manuscript.
This makes a lot more sense to me. So here's where I ended up.
I have about 11 or so draft essays in various forms:
- Some need simple revisions
- Some need re-writes
- Some are missing information or research
Next steps: Refine the first drafts; fill in the research where noted.
I'm very happy with that. 11 is probably a lower number than I thought I would get, but I found that there were certain topics I just didn't have anything to say about. The well was dry, and I didn't want to force myself to write. I very well may still cut the number of essays down from 11 while I go through the revision process, but bottom line: I feel like I succeeded in what I intended to do.
The next stage of the project will probably come in January when life in general calms down a bit.