Momma's Got a Brand New Bag!

Not really, but hey, it's a nice little euphemism for ya. Anyhoo, it's been busy, it's been crazy, it's been a dreary winter. But things are lookin' up. Yes, it's still dreary, yes, it's busy and even more crazy. BUT! The good news is that I've changed some things up and I'm super-productive now! Pow! Take that! Ok, enough of that. Let's get to the nitty-gritty.

Anyways, not reading was a bad plan. I figured that if I read, I'd have a hard time putting it down, thus not giving myself any time to write. Well the lack of an outlet or whatever you want to call it, I was finding that I wasn't in the mood to write when I actually had time to do so. I think over the span of those weeks I may have edited a total of one page, let alone wrote anything at all. As I started to feel more and more detached from my characters and the escapism of books, I felt burnt out. This compounded on itself until the hubb'n decided an intervention was in order.

He always has a way of figuring exactly what is wrong with me before I even know what it is. All I know is that I felt “off” “wrong” fill-in-the-blank-here and the guilt of not writing, on top of not being inspired to write, not being able to read—it was too much (although until he told me, I hadn't realized that was the problem). He laid it all out there and told me that I needed to change what I was doing because it wasn’t working like I’d wanted. Here’s the new plan he suggested—and I’m so grateful for that—alternating reading and writing. Being painfully aware of my inability to shut off or to stop one thing and start another, he actually came up with a decent idea, and I felt hopeful immediately. Spend a day or two reading—that’s how long it takes me to read a book—and then spend a few writing. If I can manage I squeeze in alternating those throughout the day too.

The results of I’m guessing one week on this new program: 2 books read—blog reviews to come, by the way—and several quality pages of editing I’ve been meaning to do. You see, about half-way through the 2nd chapter of my book I changed my mind on the perspective. I decided first person was definitely the way to go. So I have to go through and change it. I’m very, very happy with the results thus far, and I can only see good things coming in the future.

I seem to have an endless supply of great ideas for continuing the series, and I’m really looking forward to doing it. I hope you guys will be along for the ride.

If I can keep up my progress I can only guess that I’ll be finishing up draft 2 of my book soon—draft 1 was very rough—at which time my reviewers will get a crack at it. At this point in time, I’m going to begin preparations for queries. This means a good deal of study on 1) who to send queries to and 2) exactly what to put in said queries. But I feel that getting that prepped and ready to go will be a good way for me to keep from nagging at my reviewers to “finish the hell up already!”

This will leave the sit down and sock-it-to-me session from my reviewers. They tell me what’s bad, what’s good, etc. Even editing that I’ve missed, I’m hoping they catch. Then brainstorming on my end as far as what needs changed, what stays the same. Fixing said missed edits. And voila! Query letters are sent, and hopefully I spark some interest in samples.

Then ideally I land an agent and—BAM!—book deal with publishers and book on shelves within a year or so.

So thanks to the hubb’n for always lookin’ out for me and giving me the best options for me to truly get some work done.