Progress: Fast Forward

I honestly didn't expect to make another progress post so soon. I'm still handwriting my stories, and I don't just pull the notebook out when I have a minute. I also scribble in it when I'm home and winding down for bed. Or just because I want to write.

I took a vacation from social media the week before last. For the entire week, I didn't log into Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook. I asked people to email me if it was terribly important, though the people I interact with most often don't even know most of the places I hang out online.

Mostly, I did it to see if I could. I was also trying to break some bad habits I'd developed around my morning ritual. Purging it seemed the appropriate step.

I didn't get a lot of chores done around the apartment, and I didn't reset my sleep schedule, as I'd hoped. Nor did I get much reading done. I did spend a lot of that time writing. I lost track of time writing. I stayed up into the wee hours writing. I'd forgotten that writing was the first thing that I stayed up until dawn for when I was younger.

I estimate my little notebooks fit about 22,000 words apiece. I started out the month with one filled. Here's what I ended my social media vacation with:

I was pretty proud of my little experiment. And now, a week later, I've filled one more notebook, bringing it to about 110,000 words in my rough draft. I have finished the epic fantasy parody I'd failed to write years ago. 

I'm already mentally mapping out book 2, and I have a rough sketch of book 3. It looks like it'll be a trilogy. I could probably pad it out more than that, if I really wanted to. I don't want to. I think these books will work best on a diet of high energy and good humor.

I'm afraid I might burn myself out if I write out the second one at the same rate. On the other hand, I don't want to lose my momentum. One of the great things about being a pantster is that enthusiasm for a story tends to grow as you write and discover. One of the awful things is that, if you don't write it fast enough, you'll forget that cool scene you've already written in your head. It's that second thought that had me writing at the speed I was, and the first that bolstered me for the last month and a half. I had a lot of fun finding ways to throw my character off-balance.

I could type up all my handwritten pages, I suppose. I still have book 2 of my urban fantasy trilogy I haven't typed up, and now all this. I tend to edit as I go, too, so I wind up with a more polished typed first draft. Especially now that I know what the ending is and where all those plot threads and characterizations are going.

What do you think? Keep going on the fantasy trio? Edit the UF? Focus on reading? 

What would you do?