A Writer’s Life: And the Insanity Begins

NaNoWriMo 2021 is in the books, and just in time for the Holiday season to begin.

The holidays for me are notorious to keep me from word-count goals. Not only is it a busy time for me at the day job, but I have several batches of candy to make, presents to buy and send, trees to decorate, a post-surgery cat to care for and prep to do for my week in Iowa over Christmas.

Though I had wanted to finish the Irish Project before the end of the year, I know it’s not going to happen, and I think it’s best for my own mental health to not make it a goal.

The goal for the first draft has moved to 1/31/2022, and that’s a goal I intend to hit.

I tried to get a few words in today, but I’ve found now that I left myself at a sticky place, and some decisions need to be made before I proceed.

I started this project with a semi-completed outline, but as always happens with my writing, I discovered some new things as I started to write. I’ve learned a lot about my own writing habits. I don’t argue with the muse. If she tells me the MC is going left, we damn well go left, because if I try to shove her to the right, the muse gets mad, and goes to the Bahamas for a couple weeks to sulk.

I don’t like her being gone for that long, so I try to keep her happy.

I did not start this project as a love story, and so far, I’ve been able to keep to that. That’s not to say that my MC, Quinn, is going to get off scot free in the love department, but it’s not the focus of the story. “Write what you love to read” is common advice to the writing community, and that’s how I like my stories. I want a happy ending. I want a deserving person to find their heart’s desire. But I don’t want to focus on it.

That has made this much easier to navigate.

What’s made it harder, of course, is not being 100% sure of the ending.

I started this as a stand-alone novel. Whether it stays that way or not is still up to debate, but that was my intention. I see the potential of making it a trilogy, or even a duology. Once I get past the 75% mark, I’ll have a better idea. I like the idea of a stand-alone, but to be honest, if I want to make any money in this self-publishing business, I know having an anchor series is the way to do that.

And yes, the Avalon Project is still alive, too. Once I wrap up this first draft, the work begins in paring down my last draft of the first book, and fully re-outlining it, so that I can fix the issues the developmental editors pointed out to me in their first pass.

2022 is going to be a lot of work.

Let’s try and get through 2021 first though!