I hope this finds you well. Over here, I’m writing my little heart out. (I swear.) World Weaver is about to hit Amazon (on the 13th of October) and I’m working on the next installment of Hell Wrecker. Finally. 2015 wasn’t as productive a writing year as 2014, when I wrote all the things. I had high hopes that I would have much more done and more books out. Alas, that didn’t happen. So, I have to ask myself …
What went wrong?
Easiest answer is that nothing went wrong. I wrote as much as I could this year, considering I’m the sole support of my kids and I work a full time job (with mandatory oncall nights and weekends). I’ve been very lucky to get to be more creative in my work: creating marketing posters, campaigns, graphics, work on our social media presence, but I don’t have much leftover brain juice when I get home to dribble on my own stuff.
Yeah, I’m kind of whining.
Part of the reason I didn’t get written what I wanted to get written is I had an overly ambitious plan. It was doable, except I didn’t add in space to breathe, to play, to goof off. What happens when 100% of your day is planned out? Do you follow the list, from top to bottom and get all that shit done? Or do you look at all that stuff and go, “Screw this. I’m going to go read a book.”
Death to planning?
Nah. I really enjoyed planning out what I would write, what my word count each day would be, and what steps I needed to take to get the book ready for publishing. It was fun and last year, I really knocked things out of the park. I was on top of the word counts, I kicked all the writing butt. This year, I didn’t plan the books as well as I should have. I forgot I need lots of lead time to put a story together. I forgot that part of the joy of writing, for me, is to daydream about the story long before I sit down to write it.
I forgot about that and I paid the price.
I recently read a book called Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker. It’s a fantastic look at outlining from an angle I’d never heard before. It helped me structure World Weaver so I could go from this meandering idea to a kick ass story. (I think so, anyway.) It helped me plan the book without feeling like I’d planned it to death. (When I get carried away and plot out an entire book, old school, I soon tire of the story and rarely finish the book.) I’ll definitely be using the book’s concepts to get my writing back on track.
What’s after Hell Wrecker?
More Hell Wrecker, though in November, I’ll be working on the third book in the Blood Tetralogy series for NaNoWriMo. When Hell Wrecker and Blood Shy are finished, I’m not sure what I’ll work on next. I’d like to write what comes next for Sabra, Vedalia, and Nina. They fought for their lives in Bug Queen. It would be a shame to let them think they got away with their lives … 😀 I need to finish Hot Ride, a book that details Deb’s run-ins with her neighbor Pete. Pete and Deb showed up first in Counting On Your Love and are both clamoring to show off their sexy selves. There are many half-finished books, books that need me to remove my pants and figure out the story problems so they can get written. There’s Mistaken Identities, the first book I wrote, that needs a spit polish and a publish (because I still get caught up in it when I read it through,) there are all the stories that have been cropping up as Devany explores Midia. I want to write more about Masette, intrepid explorer, and I want to write out the tragic tale of the King Sorgen and Sephony. I want to finish Zephyrinia’s and Mal’s story, because they showed up unexpectedly in World Weaver and now I need to know how I left them.
There are the Dahlia Darksider mysteries I’d like to write. My epic fantasy Brokeneck Raven which gives me chills every time I think about it. (Good chills. Good.) Jim Blob’s story, and Chaz’s. (They both showed up in short stories and I think they want bigger books. Dang it.) There’s the Handsome and the Beast story, the idea suggested to me by my friend Amanda. And of course, I need to write my post-apocalyptic erotic novel, because who wouldn’t want to write that?
Lots of fun work to do. I just need to get back my super-fast writing mojo and get them all written.
Now these headings are getting silly, huh?
I feel like I’m interviewing myself. Sorry for the rambles. It’s just my way of figuring out what I want to do next and fulfilling the need to write a blog post, all rolled up in one thing. Tada!
Like I said, I hope this finds you well. I’m going to go write. I swear.
Jen
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