Rereading

  When I write a story, be it a book or game script, I ideally like to make it my primary focus and write the entire thing from beginning to end before moving on to any other major work or writing projects.  I may take a break and shift gears a bit after finishing the first or second draft, before getting into any sort of heavy revisions, but I really like to complete the first draft in one go.  Unfortunately, with Aurora’s Nightmare that hasn’t really been possible as, due to my work and various life events I’ve had to take a number of long breaks throughout the writing process.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve had to break up my work on a story, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.  I don’t think it hurts the quality of my writing at all, it just takes longer.  And I’m not only referring to the time spent working on other things.  Whenever I return to a story after a long break, I need to get back in the right mindset and make sure I remember all the little details of the world, characters, etc.  The requires rereading everything I’ve written so far, along with whatever notes I have about future plot developments and such.  And that’s where I am right now with Aurora’s Nightmare, reviewing and rereading in preparation to continue writing the script.  Once I actually do start writing, it often takes me anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks to get fully back in the zone.  During that period, I’m making progress but my writing speed is a bit below par.

  And that’s why I dislike taking long breaks.  Each time the break is over it takes me somewhere between a few days and few weeks to get back to my top writing speed.  Hopefully it’ll be on the quicker end this time around.