It’s Just Like Riding a Unicycle

They say that you never forget how to ride a bicycle, and in our experience that’s true. The problem is that sometimes novel writing feels more like riding a unicycle, and neither of us ever figured out how to do that (Jen does get bonus points for actually owning one when she was a kid).

The manuscript currently checks in at a little over 23,000 words, which means yay! we’re making progress. That’s double what it was the last time we talked about it. But the last time we talked about it was several weeks ago and that’s really not a ton of progress when you consider that there are two of us.

The current speed bumps are thus: Kent keeps falling down research rabbit holes and trying to write scenes to incorporate all of his new learnings, but those scenes are far ahead in the outline and haven’t been stubbed yet, and this causes angst and rewrites. Meanwhile Jen is trying to check the work we’ve completed so far against the stubs to make sure that every important detail has been included before she files the stubs away. That wouldn’t usually be a very time-consuming job, because usually we’re meticulous about following the blueprint presented in the stub. Right now, though, we’re still trying to remember how to balance on one wheel, and some details are falling through the cracks.

Why doesn’t Jen just go ahead and make the necessary changes? That was the plan, until she got into the thick of things and discovered that she’d forgotten how to steer something with no handlebars. It took many reassurances from Kent that, yes, she is allowed to — nay, is expected to — make changes, even to stuff Kent wrote, before she felt comfortable doing just that. It was a strange headspace for her to be in, and she seems to have figured her way out of it, finally.

We might not be ready to ride our unicycles in the circus, but at least we have each other around to help balance.