Here we are, on the cusp of a new decade. I will be the first to admit I am wholly unprepared for 2010 (and let’s please call it twenty-ten, NOT two-thousand-ten; after all, we say “nineteen-ten” not “one-thousand-nine-hundred-ten”), but that doesn’t mean I haven’t given it a lot of thought.

I started on a new novel last week. I had said I wouldn’t start working on this one until after I’d finished editing my nonfiction book (which is coming along nicely), but the story crystallized for me on Wednesday morning and by Friday I just couldn’t help myself.

This is going to be another short one. On a personal note, my freelance writing has really picked up recently, with three new inquiries in the past couple of week and two new regular gigs. Keep an eye on my portfolio page for updates on new articles I’m writing. I’ve also picked up a ton of new Twitter followers (you can follow me @cameron_chapman if you aren’t already).

I make a living writing. It may not be a great living, but then again, I don’t really work that much (less than twenty hours a week on paid work). I’ve been making at least a portion of my monthly writing for almost two years now.

Staying motivated over the course of any long-term project can be tough. Writing a book is no different. When you’re looking ahead at weeks or even months of writing, maintaining momentum gets tricky. My novels generally go pretty quickly, but this new nonfiction writing project is moving much slower than my previous books. With all the research involved, I’m only managing a couple thousand words a day.

I am currently working on my first non-fiction book. While I’ve completed somewhere around a thousand blog posts and articles over the past couple of years, this is my first attempt at book-length non-fiction. It’s a bit of a daunting task, the idea of writing 250 or so pages about something that I didn’t make up. And the idea that I will not be judged just based on my words and their ability to entertain, but also on the accuracy and usefulness of those words, is kind of scary.

To date, I’ve completed at least one draft on five different novels. Two were fantasy, one was science fiction, one was slipstream fiction (though on rewriting it may just become a mainstream novel), and one was women’s fiction. The first novel I ever wrote was a high fantasy epic. It was terrible. The writing itself wasn’t too horrible and the characters were decent, but the storyline was so cliched that I will never let it see the light of day in its current form. Instead, I’ll take part of the basic concept and two of the main characters and start over from scratch. It will bear little resemblance to the first draft when it’s finished.