I don’t mean finish reading. I mean finish writing.
A couple days back, I was looking for a file that I am sure I started a couple months back. Was it on my computer? In the cloud? I poked around both spaces.
First I discovered that I am really bad at filing my work. I appreciate tidiness and I have lots of folders. But there are files floating freely in unnamed spaces. Potential blog posts? Maybe outdated trash by now.
I did find bigger projects I had made a start on or made notes about and then left unfinished for one reason or another. I am interested in revisiting them and seeing if they could be written to completion and published. Here are a few of note:
Fiction
9 Point Plan
November 2010. 50,000 words.
It’s a YA novel about a girl who sets a goal to become popular. I completed a first draft. It’s not too bad (and by that, I mean I read it through and I still liked it). I need to find it an editor to fix the rough patches and suggest improvements. All the tech references are 15 years old now, and there are some inconsistencies.
What Comes, Comes
November 2018. 11,000 words.
An unfinished NaNoWriMo novel that interleaves chapters from the near-future present with several generations of ancestral spirits who are guiding the main character to claim her power as a witch. I stopped because I got confused about which characters were leading the plot. A tangled mess. It has potential to be interesting but it’s complicated to write.
Unlabelled
November 2023. 8500 words.
Have you noticed a theme to my fiction yet? All NaNoWriMo attempts! This one got about 20 pages in, but is littered with notes like “This scene needs to be earlier if dark is at 5pm. By the time the news crew is there, is it dark?? What time of year is it, anyway?” I LOVE the concept of this story, but it definitely needs me to plot it out more tightly than “Michelle gets hit in the head by a potato” which is about where I stopped writing.
Non Fiction
Where my fiction is mostly inspired by the month-long challenge to make it, non-fiction is my comfort zone. I’ve published how-to books on decluttering, yoga, and art. You will find them on Amazon if you search for Kristen McQuillin.
I have always stuck to short-format e-books because I despise the overused tactic of filling a book with personal anecdotes and fluff.
Satoyama Yoga
I already have three slim volumes on various aspects of my inclusive, hybrid yoga practice. These are mainly aimed at teachers and people planning to use yoga in their community. I hoped to expand them and make a comprehensive book that includes more detail, background, philosophy, and some specific practice flows. I wonder if a “teacher training in a book” would be a better way to outline this?
Let’s Make a Circus
2015. 6500 words.
It’s another “how to start your own community project” book. I drafted 19 pages almost ten years ago, as my circus life was starting to wind down. I have a lot of knowledge to share and stories to tell. This one will include all of the articles I wrote about performance creation, costume patterns, classes I taught around the world, circus exercises, backstage craft, accounting, and a bunch of success and failure stories.
555, a Japanese Journey in Housebuilding
I told Tod that if he bought me a keyboard (pictured above with Maura sleeping on the job), I would write a book and this is the book I meant. I am not even sure where to start. I could compile my blog posts as a coffee table book. Or do a photo essay with lots of pictures and short captions. Really, 555 is my life story, wrapped in construction drawings.
Drawing Meditations Masterclass
This is the file I was looking for. I have been wanting to compile and describe all of the exercises I use as drawing meditation, art therapy, and personal insight. There are scores of them – a few basics and then almost countless variations. Plus all of the foundational concepts of meditation and workshop facilitation. Is there an audience, or is this mostly a way for me to organise my own scattered notes into something substantial?
I still cant find the file; I wonder if I actually wrote that list on paper somewhere?
