A Writer’s Life: Find your own process.
Many years ago, when I first got interested in making cold-processed soap, I spent a lot of time reading books and websites, choosing my ingredients carefully, then doing even more research.
I started slowly, with small batches. I had some successes. Some failures.
I got bolder. Made bigger batches. Had some more success, and some more failures.
I tried different methods. Different ingredients. Over the next couple years, I continued to read. To test. To try. I gave bars to friends to try. I tried a bar from every batch myself. My husband at the time also tried them.
It was fun and fascinating and fulfilling. I continue to this day to apply those lessons in making soap. It is an activity that I still do, and still greatly enjoy.
A few years ago, I decided that I had reached a place in my life — my career, my love life — that I was ready to pursue my lifelong dream of writing novels.
Unfortunately, I did not apply my successes with cold-processed soap to my new endeavor. And I totally should have.
After having read many, many books on writing before I began, I boldly jumped in, thinking I knew what I was doing. I set up this website, made an author email address and social media accounts. I started writing.
I didn’t know what I was doing.
(To be fair, I don’t think any author knows it all at any point in their career.)
But that didn’t stop me from forging ahead, and writing almost 600K words total in 4 drafts into a book (The Avalon Project) that was nowhere near publishable. I sent the first part of it off to my developmental editors, happy as a clam. I started to outline book two.
And then I got the first few chapters back.
Now, understand. Every note in the chapters from my very capable editors was legitimate. I did not rage about it, nor did I even get upset.
But I was sad. And apparently I was in way over my head.
I stuffed everything to the side, and gave myself some room to grieve what I thought was my easy path to success.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the editors were exactly right. I was trying to cram too much into a story that couldn’t support it.
I was devastated. Upset with myself. I spent a couple weeks brooding about it.
And then I made a batch of soap, and all of my lessons from all those years ago came back to me.
Well, not all of them, because here I sit, a year later, with an unfinished NEW project (The Irish Project), that has different issues than the Avalon Project, but issues nonetheless.
But I’m approaching it differently this time. I worked on a re-outline, and tried to narrow my scope. I’m currently reading two books, Story Genius by Lisa Cron and New Worlds, Year One: A Writer's Guide to the Art of Worldbuilding by Marie Brennan (who, by the way, writes fabulous fantasy books, especially the Onyx Court and her Warrior/Witch duology). I carry my notebook everywhere. When something strikes, I write it down.
I am learning. Just like I did with the soap.
And as with the soap, it’s going to take some time to get this right.
I have time.
A batch of cold-process soap I made about 8 years ago, using mica and activated charcoal for color and I believe this was scented with lime and cedar.
This is one of my favorite batches ever. And it wasn’t done at the beginning of my tries. I had been making soap at this point for nearly 12 years.
