Momentum

The tonsils are out, and while I've had my ups and downs this past week, it's not the worst. Not particularly fun, but not the worst. So! Since I'm not completely miserable and I have passed off most of the care of my children to other adults, I've actually gotten quite a bit of writing done. Yay me.

When I last blogged, I predicted Hunting Astrid would go eight chapters (or so). I debated whether or not to split one chapter into two, and ultimately did so, so it does look like I'll wind up with eight, plus a short epilogue. I finished Chapter Six today, but the next two will be long, so don't expect a finished draft any time soon. For total word count, I'm predicting...let's say around 22K. Definitely more than 20K, probably less than 25K. Either way, it'll be a cute, fun little novella that didn't take me a ton of time, assuming I don't get struck by a meteor or something in the next few weeks. Another win.

I'm still patting myself on the back for deciding to work on this project and shelve Sonata for Springtime for the time being. 4th Quarter royalty statements just came out, and while I admit I still don't know all the ins and outs of the Kindle Unlimited program, Fire Beyond the Frost did do well, I'm happy to report. At least better than a lot of my other books upon release. KU tracks pages read instead of books as a whole, and if I did my math right (which I TOTALLY might not have), it translates into a triple-digit number of readers. Or, for all I know, one or two people who liked it so much they read it a bunch of times. As someone who is far from a world-famous author with a huge following, I'll take it.

I'd suspected for a while that the more specific your categories/genres/niches/whatever you want to call it, the more successful a book will be. (Unless you're really savvy with your keywords and marketing, which I am not.) We'll see if I can keep the momentum going with Hunting Astrid, and if lesbian sci-fi romance turns out to be my true, yet somewhat specific, calling, so be it. I'm not saying I'll never write in another genre again, because I know that won't be the case, but for now, we'll see where this path takes me. Either way, I'm finally writing like crazy for the first time in years, and if I'm having fun, I'm hoping readers will, too.

New Project, and a New Year, Part the Next

Happy New Year! Writing-wise, 2020 is off to a great start. Before we get to January, I'll follow up a bit from my last post to provide some general advice to anyone who may want/need it: Remember how I'd considered bringing a notebook with me to Disney World juuuuust in case there might be a few spare minutes to write? Ha. Hahahahaha. HA. Yeah, no. Disney is crazy on its own, and as the Official Organizer of this trip, who had to keep track of everything including two 4-year-olds and two 70-year-olds...I didn't even open the book I brought to read, either. But although we got zero down time and my darling children refused to sleep in any buses or airplanes, we had a fantastic time. Which we can probably do all over again in another two to three years....

For the Disney uninitiated, if you want to get the most popular meal reservations, you need to get up at 6:00 a.m. EST 180 days before the first day of your trip to book them all. Since the Be Our Guest restaurant is the only place to meet the Beast, that's a popular one. Yeah, I didn't care what the rest of my family did, I was the one who got up before 6:00 that day, I was getting a picture with the Beast, dammit.

Now onto writing. The new project, which has been titled (and officially tagged here as) Hunting Astrid, is still going well. Honestly, this is probably some of the fastest writing I've done in years. Maybe not necessarily the best, but it's something. If nothing else, at least it's a great baseline/first draft I can always clean up later, right?

I just finished up Chapter Three, and as of right now, I'm predicting around eight...ish? That's the other thing about this project—I'm definitely pants-ing more than plotting this time out, and THAT'S OKAY. My two main characters still have placeholders instead of last names. SO WHAT? I still haven't worked out 100% of the issues I worried about at the time of my last blog post. I'LL FIGURE IT OUT SOON ENOUGH. I've been working to getting back to these writing habits for a long time, and while I'll always have bouts of overthinking things, at least it feels more effortless. I'm hoping to keep it up.

One more not totally writing-related point before I sign off: After dealing with recurring issues for the past six months, it's been decided that my tonsils are coming out sometime in February. Yes, we're all aware that, in my mid-30s, I'm practically ancient in the tonsillectomy world, but it's got to get done. (I'm about ready to reach in and rip them out myself.) I've been told that the older you are, the worse the recovery is, and the ENT told me to prepare for at least two weeks of that. In a perfect world, I'd be able to use some of that time off to write, but we'll see. I'm just hoping I won't be zonked out on the couch for two straight weeks and can at least catch up with some knitting and Netflix.

Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

After what felt like forever, I finally got the thumbs-up from my surgeon last week to resume normal activity. The PICC line is finally out, and I'm no longer on antibiotics, so I'm feeling pretty good. All this happened just in time for me to be a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding this past weekend, so I jumped right back into things. I figured if I could last on the dance floor (barely) until midnight, everything else would come back easily. I went back to the gym yesterday, I go back to work next week, and I can take care of my own kids again. I'm sure my mom is glad she packed up all her stuff and my husband likes having that room available again.

And, of course, we all know what else is on this list - writing! I did manage to knock out a few paragraphs for Sonata for Springtime last week before getting back to living my life, and I'm hoping more will soon follow now that my head's not all fuzzy from the antibiotics. I probably haven't gotten very far since the last time I blogged about this project, so I might be repeating myself, but this is sort of a transitional chapter, and then the next three will be FUN. I don't want to call it filler, but, well, it's not the most exciting part of the book. Now I just have to get to the end of it and I'm hoping the middle third of this book will just fly out of my typing fingers. I'll consider anything a win at this point!

More Than Filler

I'm still plugging along on Sonata for Springtime, though between promo for Closing Montage and life in general, it's been slow. By my estimation, I think I'm around a third of the way done, which isn't too shabby. But since I write in order, I'm at a point that's a tad less exciting than the chapters around it.

Obviously, I want the book as a whole to be exciting, or at least enough to keep the readers engaged and satisfied. And it's not like the entire book's plot can be climax after climax. (Insert erotic romance joke here.) Pacing and moving things along between the key points, though, can be a challenge.

The previous chapter is the longest so far, and probably one of the most significant ones. I have an outline, and there's a lot of good stuff coming up in the next three chapters that I'm looking forward to writing. Unfortunately, I can't just jump ahead to the good stuff, as it would be jarring and mess with the pacing. Besides, there needs to be some aftermath to the GREAT REVELATIONS! of that prior chapter. I just need to make it interesting.

I hate the idea of writing "filler", but sometimes you just need to connect the dots and move from Point A to Point B. Will anything particularly noteworthy happen in this chapter? Probably not. But as long as it doesn't drag down the pacing too much, I'm fine with its function of bridging the gaps between more crucial scenes. As one of my college professors once said (about something unrelated, admittedly), you're never going to make an apple out of a potato. It is what it is.

Just Pacing, No Racing

Since I last checked in 20 days ago, I did, in fact, finish the novella-in-progress. I'm wrapping up proofing/editing now, and then I'll write the %#$&-ing blurbs, and then I guess it's ready to ship off. Yay.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm not 100% thrilled with the pacing in parts. It is a bit back-heavy, but a lot of that is due to the romance scenes. I know, I know, the obvious answer is "go back and fix it!" I even know exactly where I should add another scene/chapter to help balance it out. (In between Chapters 4 and 5, if anyone's keeping track.) The problem is, I don't know *what* that scene/chapter should be about. And if I'm forcing it, it's probably not going to be my finest writing.

On the other hand, though, I had similar qualms about another chapter I inserted into my original outline to help with pacing. (And, um, hitting the minimum word count.) And that chapter wound up being one of the better ones, and I'm definitely glad I included it. But that might have exhausted my reservoir of logical scenes to include.

So...I don't know. I think I'm going to leave it for now, and then if wiser people tell me to go back and add something else, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I guess this could go either way - either my instincts are right, or I'm totally overthinking this. One day I'll have all the answers, right? (haha no.)

Racing and Pacing

I've finally arrived at the final chapter of my novella-in-progress (okay, there's going to be a little epilogue, too), and as always, I'm sprinting toward the finish line. I don't know what it is about endings that gets me to write faster. Maybe it's because since I write in order, I've been thinking about the ending for so long, it's planned out spectacularly well in my head. Maybe I just want the accomplishment of getting the damn thing done.

Either way, as I ponder this, I sometimes worry that this phenomenon affects my pacing. I ran into this issue a bit with Seductive Suspect - so much happened at the end of the book, I had to go back and balance out the beginning a bit. (And then that all got chopped up in editing anyway, but I digress.) Same thing here - word count-wise, these last two chapters are taking up, like, a third of the book. I'm going to have to go back and expand on those earlier chapters, I think, but for now, I just want to get to the end before I start working on the smaller details.

Then again, as I ponder this even more, I wonder if this issue crops up often due to the structure of romance stories. It depends on the structure of the story, of course, but there is a certain...format? template? that focuses on the journey of the characters getting together, and then explicitly stating what happens when they finally accomplish that. Or, as I sometimes joke around about, there's the climax, and then there's the climax. ;)

I've done it both ways, either saving the big bedroom scene for the end, or peppering them in throughout. For me, it seems like shorter stories are more likely to have just one explicit scene in them. Obviously, those scenes require words, but since it's expected in my genre, does that *really* count toward the overall balance of a work?

I think I've been navel-gazing for too long, instead of just writing the damn story and figuring out the more minor things later on. Also, I should turn off the word count display to avoid more crazymaking, but that's a different story for a different day.

Forging Ahead Into the New Year

Happy New Year! Okay, I'm a couple weeks behind. I'll be honest - while I do love the holiday season and it's one of my favorite times of the year, part of me is really glad to be settling back into our usual routine. I was a creature of habit even before having kids, and now I have two little people who benefit from having structure. So even though it was great being around friends and family, celebrating and doing other fun stuff, I'm not terribly disappointed that it's all over.

With that return to normalcy comes a new burst of writing energy! I've noticed this for a couple years now. Something about the new year gives me the push I need and I get a lot done in the early months. I wish I could bottle up whatever it is and whip it out in, say, August, but I'll take what I can get. Who knows, maybe the darker, colder months just lend themselves to better writing when there's little else to do.

I'm moving right along on Seductive Suspect. The chapters are getting longer; I plan to finish one this week, and then I only have two more, plus an epilogue. I'm on track for my estimated word count, and I have very firm plans for the final chapters/epilogue. When I started this book, I had a pretty comprehensive outline for a change, but there were still some blanks that needed filling in, and I struggled there a few times. For where I am right now and one point near the climax, there's a couple minor little details I need to work out, but I think/hope it'll be smooth sailing until the end.

I'm all about realistic deadlines. Knowing real life can get in the way, I *think* I can be done with this and ready to submit by the end of February. I have a few weeks of wiggle room, but I NEED to be done by mid-March. Why, you ask? Some major life event? An exotic vacation? Vanishing in a glamorous poof of mystery?

Nope. Mass Effect: Andromeda comes out then. I pre-ordered it a while ago, and since I'll only be able to play in the evenings once I have it, I anticipate it's going to take me a loooooooooong time to get through it. As they say in the games before the final quests, I'd better wrap up any unfinished business before then, since I'll be disappearing off the face of the earth for a while. ;)

Plop!

Almost a month since my last post? How'd that happen?

At least I can report that Out of Orbit is underway. I'm not going to lie and say I have an astronomical word count I can brag about, but it's coming along. Really.

It's been quite some time since I've done serious sci-fi and the extensive world-building that goes along with it. (And to be fair, The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions is a sequel, so when I was writing that, I was working within an established universe.) In the beginning of this book, I'm facing the expected challenge: walking the fine line between world-building and info dumping.

It's not easy, and since I'm still in the early stages, I don't even know yet if I've been successful. I'm going with my usual technique of "assume the reader already knows everything and doesn't need to be spoonfed all the information, and it'll eventually make sense". I've got all my notes on the way things work in this world, and they'll come out when necessary. Even so, I'm still stressing about the pacing in the first couple chapters.

I'm confident everything will eventually come together. If I have to cut later on, so be it. I feel strongly about this project, enough that it bumped several other ideas that have been bouncing around for a while down the to-do list. I just need to make sure readers will love the story as much as I do and not get bogged down in all the details.

The End is In Sight

As of right now, Second Skin is set to release on Friday. Cross your fingers and mark it on your calendars!

Nextly, it seems I have finally unearthed myself from the great big whopping pile of work I had. Of course it's only a matter of time before things get crazy and I'm swamped again, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the breathing room while it lasts.

During the Escape from Work Mountain, I did get a fair amount of writing done on The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions. As much as I like my site/blog, if a choice has to be made, writing fiction is always going to win out over writing here. Sad but true. Anyway, it's been coming along, and sometime in the past week, I had that moment.

That glorious moment.

That wonderful moment.

The one where you've been writing for months, chiseling away at that fantastic plot you've been dreaming about for ages, getting the damn words onto the damn page, and then all of a sudden...the end is in sight. You can see the finish line. You're in the home stretch.

It always seems to sneak up on me, and then I rejoice when I finally realize it. By my current calculations, I have three more chapters and an epilogue to do before going back through and adding in the things I forgot. Then it's time for the final proofing and then shipping it off. In some ways, it feels like quite the lengthy list, while in others, it feels like I'm right there.

I write in order (as I've mentioned before), which means that I save the climax for, well, where it goes. The excitement's there, the motivation is there, so I'm hoping this part will just fly by. These parts have been in my head for so long, and now it's finally time to put my heart and soul on the page and it's going to FEEL SO GOOD.

If I were a runner, I'm sure there's some type of running or marathon metaphor I could be using here. But HAHAno. I don't run. Ever. I'd best leave that alone.