Wondering about... backlogs

Hello everyone,

Backlogs.

I have no idea if that's even the right word for it, so I'll start by explaining what I'm on about.

Last year I wrote 52 drafts. (Nope, I wasn't actually trying to do one a week, no idea how that happened.) 26 of those drafts require no further action. That means they've either been re-written into a new draft, one that's different enough to be listed as a project in it's own right, or they were edited up and submitted for publication.

Therefore, I have still 26 stories from last year that require further action - either editing or re-writing or, in the case of one or two of them, burning to the ground and starting over again with nothing more than the title. (And I have another year before that with almost as many stories requiring attention in it's backlog, but I'm not going there at the moment.)

So, the obvious thing to do would be to work on those 26 before I start anything new. I should knuckle down to re-writes and editing and... Okay, it's not going to happen, so I should probably not even bother telling you what I should do. I need a certain number of first drafts in my life to stay even a little bit sane. Which leaves me wondering what is a realistic aim for dealing with the backlog.

Given a good run at it, I can edit up a finished draft of a novella into a submittable story 2 weeks. Technically that means I could submit 24 novellas in a year if none of them turned out to need complete re-writing and I didn't take any time off - probably not healthy to do that. Even if it was healthy, I'd still be two stories in the red.

Realistic? Well, the aim I've decided on isn't really realistic, but I'd really love to be able to half 2008's backlog during 2009.

Or maybe I should just concentrate on having less of a backlog for the stories I write this year when the next new year comes around?

Hell, the way I'm going. 2010 will be chiming it's way into my life before I've even set this years new years resolution, let alone done anything else!

Okay, enough moaning. I have some fantastic news to share with you. So fantastic I think it deserves a post of it's own.

See below. Hang on, on blogger it will be above, right? *Sigh* I'm sure you know what I mean.

...

Other news:

I finished the lust bite I was first drafting. I couldn't keep the draft down to 10k the way I planned - it turned out to be 14,500 words, which should make the editing interesting, since my stories usually grow a few thousand words during editing and the upper limit is 15k. I'm pretty sure I need to covert half of it to a different point of view, so with any luck that would help with the word count at the same time. Anyway, I'm setting that to one side to be edited at a later date.

So, tomorrow I will be starting a new first draft, and a new editing project.

For editing, I'm torn between working on my TEB anthology story and the first novella in a series that I'm intending to submit to another publisher. Not sure if I'll have time to do them both this month. They're both written, so I'll have to have a read through them and see where they stand.

For writing, a few different possibilities there too. Too many to actually list. I'll let you know when I've made a decision. Given my current ability to make a decision and stick to it, that may take some time.

Oh, and don't forget to check out Dakota's introductory post on Writer's Evolution. Link on the right hand side bar :)