As promised, here is the title I revealed at Hooray for Books in Virginia this afternoon:
Eek!! Look at the pretty! And it’s BLUE! Anyone who knows me will know how absolutely thrilled I am by that fact. 😀
I can’t share anything but the title right now, but know that the full cover is coming soon! May 30th during Book Expo America, to be exact. Stay tuned for more details as I get permission to share them!
Stepping Down (c) Craig Lucas
I’m finished with this round of edits on Sing Sweet Nightingale.
I’ve turned in the first draft of The Dream War Saga Book 2.
I’m waiting on revision notes on a project from my agent.
I’m on hold with my co-authored series while things happen. Good things.
Basically, I’m suddenly like an airplane that wants to come in to land but keeps being told by air traffic control to circle. It’s awesome because it means I have a lot going on and people who are willing to help me, but it also means I’m kind of at loose ends right now. Between projects. So… what do you do?
Start a new one. 🙂
The best thing to do in these situations is let a new idea take center stage for a little while or go back to an idea you maybe didn’t have the time to develop earlier. I have more than enough of the latter to keep me occupied, so right now I’m tinkering with a story involving a death, a conspiracy, and a lot of mystery. I’ve never written anything like it before, so it’s both difficult and fun to force my brain down meandering paths I’ve never traveled. I don’t know if this project will ever see THE END or if anyone except me will ever read it, but that doesn’t make the journey any less enjoyable.
One thing I think can be forgotten in the press to get published and to make a career of it and all that is that writers need to play. We need to write drafts that don’t work to figure out what does work. We need to meet characters we hate so we know how to write ones we’ll love. And we need to create stories for ourselves sometimes. Just because it seems like fun.
Maybe this book will one day sit on a shelf next to all my other ones. Maybe not. Right now, I’m not worried about that. Right now, I just want to see what happens next.
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| The first edit of SSN, printed out. |
So you wrote a draft. An entire book! Good for you! You’re officially a more accomplished writer than 95% of the people who attempt to write a book. But… now what?
Now is the time to send it out into the world. Not to agents and editors and contests, but to other writers and trusted friends and family. You send it out with the hope that they’ll be able to show you some of the plot holes you never noticed, catch the character discrepancies you accidentally threw in there, and help make this book ready to face the gauntlet of the publication process.
That’s where I am right now.
Last night I finished my last-check read-through of TDWS Book 2 and sent the file off to a few people, most of whom haven’t read book 1. That may seem like a strange thing to do, but one thing I want to check is, can you understand what’s happening in book 2 without reading the first one? If you happened to pick this book up first, would everything make sense?
Now that the book is out in the world, I have to wait. And hope. Hope the people I sent it to love it, hope I didn’t miss anything that would cause the entire plot to collapse, and hope all my kind volunteers have the time to read it before I need notes back at the end of the month. But that’s a lot of what publishing is. Waiting. I’ve never been the most patient person, but I’m getting better at playing this game as time goes on. It helps that I’m also really good at keeping myself busier than I need to be. While my wonderful agent and my beautiful volunteers read book 2, I will be immersing myself in a different world and trying as hard as I can to finish this fantasy project of mine.
*takes a deep breath and disappears*
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| Mountain Lake Sunset (c) mwingine |
I’ve had a day to decompress a little from finishing the draft of the book that shall not be named right now and I still feel a little too brain-dead to function. It was REALLY bad yesterday, though. I got absolutely nothing useful done. I couldn’t focus long enough to bother. So I didn’t.
One thing I’m learning the hard way is that you have to take breaks and let your brain regroup or your mind is going to burn out and you’ll end up useless for a long while. I’ve been writing on overdrive speed for a long while now and so taking a few days to read things I didn’t write, make some new jewelry, and watch some awesome TV sounds like a really good plan.
One great thing I did do yesterday was read a book by new friend and agent sister Tristina Wright. People, you better hope this book gets picked up. You want to read it. I promise you.
The hardest part of this “taking a break” is that part of my brain is yelling at me to get to work on my next project. I have more than one book I’ve been dying to finish writing. I just… can’t. So I’m telling that side of my head to shut up for now. This weekend, I’m doing nothing but making pretty things and watching Dr. Who. I’m really looking forward to it! 😀
You guys, my brain feels broken right now, but I have to post this because OMG.
I HAVE FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT OF BOOK 2!
I just… I can’t even. I have no words left. I fought this book for all of them and it left me with nothing.
Excuse me while I go collapse.
This is my brain while drafting:
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| Broken Glass (c) Patrick Moore |
I don’t think I’d feel quite so broken and helpless if I knew what was holding me back from writing the last 30,000 words of this book. But I don’t know. Am I trying to force the characters to do something they don’t want to do? Maybe it’s a plothole I haven’t realized is there yet. Whatever the issue, my CPs and my editors can’t fix something that hasn’t been written. My job for the next couple of weeks is to ignore the problems I can’t find and write.
For this draft, I allow myself to write crap. I allow scenes that will probably get rewritten or deleted and dialogue that jumps all over the place and scene breaks that come too soon because I’m just fresh out of steam. I allow this draft to be a disaster because at least when I finish I’ll have a draft. And that’s more than I would have had otherwise.
Wish me luck!
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| Truck Stuck in the Mud (c) Nico van Diem |
Whether or not it’s truly writer’s block, sometimes you get stuck. Maybe you don’t know where you’re going. Maybe the characters are giving you trouble. Maybe you know your characters and where you need to go, but you’re not sure how to get there. Whatever the issue, sometimes you’re looking at your book and curing the idea that brought you to this point. Especially if you’re stuck and one a deadline. Cause, you know, that’s TONS OF FUN.
In case it wasn’t obvious, that’s where I am right now. Stuck and on deadline.
Granted, it’s not a tight deadline yet. I still have wiggle room. I also have a pretty strong lead. Most of the first draft is already done (thankfully), I just have to figure out how to piece the rest of it together. Which is why I love editing so much better than drafting. When I’m editing, I’ve already made it past the worst of these puzzles and the crossroads where I could split off in a thousand different directions. Options are nice, but they can also be paralyzing. Maybe that’s what’s paralyzing me now.
Whatever the problem is, I have to figure it out, push it out of the way, or go around it. I’m diving into the second book in The Dream War Saga again today and I will finish it before deadline. Because I refuse to let it beat me!
Hold me to that, people. Don’t let me slack off!
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| Champagne Clink (c) Roger Kirby |
You guys, yesterday. Yesterday was a day of days! I sent off my first round of edits on Sing, Sweet Nightingale to my editors and my agent! It is done!
Seriously. I finished! It was starting to feel impossible, but I did it. There is light at the end of the tunnel!
After I sent off the email, I read a book. Like, one I hadn’t written! That hasn’t happened in a long time. After that, though… That’s when I started doubting my sanity because I just kept wandering over to my computer and opening up my folder of writing projects and scrolling through it trying to decide what to work on next. And not just next. I wanted to work on something right that second.
Some advice from me, learn how to take a break and celebrate your triumphant moments! Even if you have to force yourself to do it. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself at your computer on a night you should be taking off staring at your next WIP.
As great as my enforced night off was, I’m very excited about the three projects lined up on my To-do list. Just to give you an idea:
One of them is a contemporary I co-wrote with my bestie Lani Woodland. The characters in that book are so adorable just thinking about them makes me happy!
The second project is The Dream War Saga Book 2. It’s already halfway done, but I need to finish it so that it can start going through the same rounds of edits Sing is suffering now! I’m really excited about the way this series is taking shape and I can’t wait to see it fleshed out and finished! Eek!! 😀
The third book on my To-do list will probably have to stay on the back burner a bit longer. While my agent is waiting for revisions on my contemporary with Lani and my editors are waiting for the first draft of TDWS Book 2, there are no expectations on this still untitled project. It’s completely captured my imagination, though. I have it half written and I so want to go back and finish it! Soon. Definitely (hopefully) soon. And, actually, it’s kind of nice to have a project with no deadline in sight.
So, that’s what I will be working on in the meantime. Look for more Sing revision updates when I receive my next edit letter. Hopefully this one will be 1/10th as long as the last one. Probably not, but I can dream, right?
This is a post of news in various forms: Progress news, Good news, and Vague news. So, let’s get started.
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| Wow! (c) David Siqueira |
Progress News:Â
I’m still plugging away at The Dream War Saga Book 2 and over the weekend hit the 56,000 word mark! I’m past the halfway point and I’m really loving where this book is going… as long as I concentrate on how shiny it will be after my editresses Danielle and Patricia help me polish it and not how rough and raw draft one is now. Luckily it’s not too hard to look past the uneven pacing, the dropped emotional threads and subplots, the unanswered questions, and the chapters that kind of ramble. I see the potential and the potential is all sorts of awesome!
Good News:Â
Speaking of my editresses, Danielle Ellison announced this morning that she sold ANOTHER two books! This time the series starts with the digital-only release of Salt, a YA paranormal, with Entangled Publishing! This is awesome news and I am so proud of her! I know it will be incredible because, well, it’s Dani. So, duh. 😉 Read more about this amazingness on her website here.
Vague News:Â
I got an email last night that could lead to something amazingly cool for me and a friend of mine. I can’t say much about it yet, but I really hope everything happens the way it looks like it might! Also, pretty awesome things are happening behind the scenes of The Dream War Saga! I wish I could say more about both of these things or even tell you when I might have news for sure, but I just don’t know! Suffice it to say that 2013 is shaping up to be even more awesome than I’d hoped it might be!
That’s it for now, but I’ll check back in on Wednesday, lovelies! Hope you all enjoyed your weekend!
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| Champagne (c) Design4Y |
It may be a few days late (two, to be exact), but I hit 40,000 words in The Dream War Saga Book 2! And, better yet, I think the first draft of this book may come in around 80,000 instead of 100,000 words, so this means I’m at the halfway point! What the freak? How did that happen?
I already know a lot of what I’ve written will have to be tweaked or flat-out changed, but that’s fine. At least now the first half of the story has a shape, something for me to chisel and chip away from or mold and add to.
Hopefully–if my grand plans work out (which, honestly, they rarely do)–I will have a good portion of the book done before I really dive into edits on Sing, Sweet Nightingale in a couple of weeks. Also hopefully, the books will continue to be creepier than I could have imagined and make me question my own sanity more than usual. Because it’s totally been doing that so far and it’s actually really fun!
Is it weird that I think being able to question my own sanity is fun? More than likely. Seriously, though, this book has been surprising in some really interesting ways and I can’t wait to see where the rest of it goes!