Cameron Darrow's Blog, page 2
March 2, 2024
Interview!
I did my first-ever interview over at I Heart Sapphic talking about Hall of Mirrors and writing in general. It was a new experience for me, and I thank TB and Miranda for the opportunity. I hope you enjoy it!
January 4, 2024
Sapphic Book Bingo!
If you are looking for a structured excuse way to to read a bunch of books this year, author Jae has put together a bingo reading challenge for 2024! Tons of categories that you might not have thought about or needed a little extra prodding to try, or time-tested favorites with authors that are new to you.
Below you'll find the bingo cards themselves, plus the list of all the categories and rules you need to get started! I'm proud to be a part of it, one of two reading challenges I'll be participating in this year!
Happy reading!
https://jae-fiction.com/sapphic-book-...
Below you'll find the bingo cards themselves, plus the list of all the categories and rules you need to get started! I'm proud to be a part of it, one of two reading challenges I'll be participating in this year!
Happy reading!
https://jae-fiction.com/sapphic-book-...
December 22, 2023
2023
Every year-end post I write, I go back and look at the one from the beginning of the year to see how things went, and...
Oh.
Not having a book out this year hurts a lot. I was really optimistic at the beginning of the year, full of ideas and energy, but the year went off the rails so fast that I never really emerged from the bush I landed in. It was a very peaks and valleys kind of year, but the valleys were deeper than the peaks were high, and it took increasing amounts of energy to climb out of them.
It seems a lot of people had a tough time this year, and I was no exception. Burnout is real, and feels different than I thought it would. I didn't recognize it, and trying to brute force my way out was the opposite of what I needed to do. I got a lot of raw work done, but having none of it be publishable kind of started a cycle of pushing and falling that left me sore and covered in bruises. Suffice it to say, I very much need this upcoming time off.
But I will have earned it! Since my October post, I've finished a (very) rough draft of a book, the most progress I've made on a project since Pax Victoria! It's not pretty, but there's a lot I like about it. The second draft is usually my favorite, so I hope that proves the case here! Refining things is easier than making them up out of whole cloth, and leaving it on the shelf for a while will go a long way towards helping figure out how and what to refine. As I also mentioned in that post, I won't be talking about it in any sort of detail, but it has a lot of elements from all of my books, but in a genre I'm still learning the ropes of. That's all you'll get from me at the moment! The important part is that I have a complete story, and it feels good to be able to finally say that.
To each and every one of you, I wish you only the best this holiday season. This year has been hell, and your support and patience mean the absolute world to me. If you've ever left a review, comment or reached out to me in any way, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Every positive word makes a genuine difference.
From me and mine to you and yours: thank you.
Oh.
Not having a book out this year hurts a lot. I was really optimistic at the beginning of the year, full of ideas and energy, but the year went off the rails so fast that I never really emerged from the bush I landed in. It was a very peaks and valleys kind of year, but the valleys were deeper than the peaks were high, and it took increasing amounts of energy to climb out of them.
It seems a lot of people had a tough time this year, and I was no exception. Burnout is real, and feels different than I thought it would. I didn't recognize it, and trying to brute force my way out was the opposite of what I needed to do. I got a lot of raw work done, but having none of it be publishable kind of started a cycle of pushing and falling that left me sore and covered in bruises. Suffice it to say, I very much need this upcoming time off.
But I will have earned it! Since my October post, I've finished a (very) rough draft of a book, the most progress I've made on a project since Pax Victoria! It's not pretty, but there's a lot I like about it. The second draft is usually my favorite, so I hope that proves the case here! Refining things is easier than making them up out of whole cloth, and leaving it on the shelf for a while will go a long way towards helping figure out how and what to refine. As I also mentioned in that post, I won't be talking about it in any sort of detail, but it has a lot of elements from all of my books, but in a genre I'm still learning the ropes of. That's all you'll get from me at the moment! The important part is that I have a complete story, and it feels good to be able to finally say that.
To each and every one of you, I wish you only the best this holiday season. This year has been hell, and your support and patience mean the absolute world to me. If you've ever left a review, comment or reached out to me in any way, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Every positive word makes a genuine difference.
From me and mine to you and yours: thank you.
November 26, 2023
Mega Sale!
Edit: The sale has ended!
I Heart Sapphic has organized a ginormous sale featuring over 350 books, many of which are only $.99!
As part of this sale, and part of Black Cyber Friday Monday, Remember, November, The Fires of Winter and Without Words are all only $.99.
I'm sure you've all read them already (right? right?), but the sale includes a ton of other books in just about every genre. It's the holidays, treat yourself! And stock up for long nights in front of the fire in the months to come.
Sale page 1
I Heart Sapphic has organized a ginormous sale featuring over 350 books, many of which are only $.99!
As part of this sale, and part of Black Cyber Friday Monday, Remember, November, The Fires of Winter and Without Words are all only $.99.
I'm sure you've all read them already (right? right?), but the sale includes a ton of other books in just about every genre. It's the holidays, treat yourself! And stock up for long nights in front of the fire in the months to come.
Sale page 1
October 28, 2023
Updates
Somehow it's been three months since my last post, so I I thought I would give you all an update on things here at Cameron Darrow's Ye Olde Sapphic Fiction Emporium.
Yes, I'm still writing! Not to worry there. I've actually written quite a lot, I just don't know what of it you'll ever see. For most of the last year I was working on the third Alumita book, but I couldn't make it work. The sunk-cost fallacy bit me hard, and I kept trying to massage it and bend it until it was something serviceable. I rebooted (yes, rebooted, as in started over) it twice, even got other eyeballs on it for some preliminary feedback, but I had to throw in the towel. I was exhausted, and needed to put it away before I began to hate writing itself. Will I return to it? Maybe, but I needed to work on something else. Something different. So far, it's been the right choice!
No one is more frustrated than me about my lack of published output since finishing the Ashes books, but that failure is not from a lack of effort. Between the three projects I've actively worked on, including all the scenes I cut and rewrote (or not), I've written close to 150,000 words this year! Midnight Magic is around 70,000, for reference. I just haven't released any of them. Add on top of that a ton of real-life... issues... and it all adds up to nothing being published in 2023.
This isn't a pity party, however! It's just the process. A year ago I had to ask myself 'Now what?' after Pax Victoria came out, and answering it has just been a slow process of trial and error.
Take heart, though, friends! I finally feel like I'm in a reasonably good place creatively right now, and thus far the fruits of that labor have been sweet. I've been working on something different, and that change of pace (and thinking) has been good for me. It's a project that's been bubbling in the back of my head for awhile, and bringing it to life has been rewarding thus far.
But one thing I learned in the frustrated doldrums of the last year is that I shouldn't talk about projects until they're more mature. I've said a lot over the last year about what I'm working on and what the next book could be, and none of it's come to fruition. So I will try to remain mum on things so as not to avoid putting out expectations or building hype for something that might just fall apart. (Not to mention the f*cking AI thing, which was a waste of time and regrettable.) So I won't be mentioning specifics about a project until it's at least in beta-reader form from now on.
So all-in-all, I have been invisible but not idle! What official form my next book takes is yet to be seen, but there will be a next book. I've just had to work through some stuff. I appreciate your patience, and must ask for a little more.
Excelsior!
Yes, I'm still writing! Not to worry there. I've actually written quite a lot, I just don't know what of it you'll ever see. For most of the last year I was working on the third Alumita book, but I couldn't make it work. The sunk-cost fallacy bit me hard, and I kept trying to massage it and bend it until it was something serviceable. I rebooted (yes, rebooted, as in started over) it twice, even got other eyeballs on it for some preliminary feedback, but I had to throw in the towel. I was exhausted, and needed to put it away before I began to hate writing itself. Will I return to it? Maybe, but I needed to work on something else. Something different. So far, it's been the right choice!
No one is more frustrated than me about my lack of published output since finishing the Ashes books, but that failure is not from a lack of effort. Between the three projects I've actively worked on, including all the scenes I cut and rewrote (or not), I've written close to 150,000 words this year! Midnight Magic is around 70,000, for reference. I just haven't released any of them. Add on top of that a ton of real-life... issues... and it all adds up to nothing being published in 2023.
This isn't a pity party, however! It's just the process. A year ago I had to ask myself 'Now what?' after Pax Victoria came out, and answering it has just been a slow process of trial and error.
Take heart, though, friends! I finally feel like I'm in a reasonably good place creatively right now, and thus far the fruits of that labor have been sweet. I've been working on something different, and that change of pace (and thinking) has been good for me. It's a project that's been bubbling in the back of my head for awhile, and bringing it to life has been rewarding thus far.
But one thing I learned in the frustrated doldrums of the last year is that I shouldn't talk about projects until they're more mature. I've said a lot over the last year about what I'm working on and what the next book could be, and none of it's come to fruition. So I will try to remain mum on things so as not to avoid putting out expectations or building hype for something that might just fall apart. (Not to mention the f*cking AI thing, which was a waste of time and regrettable.) So I won't be mentioning specifics about a project until it's at least in beta-reader form from now on.
So all-in-all, I have been invisible but not idle! What official form my next book takes is yet to be seen, but there will be a next book. I've just had to work through some stuff. I appreciate your patience, and must ask for a little more.
Excelsior!
July 29, 2023
Drawing the Arc
Hello all! I know I've been away for awhile (life stuff), but I have returned! This time, with some thoughts on how to actually put the arc in character arc.
As a quasi-update to set the stage, I'm currently working on two books, and in both cases I smacked headlong into a wall. Neither story was progressing the way I wanted them to and I simply couldn't force my way forward anymore. Like, sitting at the keyboard and just... nothing happening. It's a scary and frustrating feeling, but being away for awhile helped immensely because it gave me exactly what I needed: perspective. And distance. Enough to go back and ask fundamental questions about the story and really dig into WTF was going on.
Turns out, both had the same problem: characters starting in the wrong place.
When we think of character arcs, we (okay, me. I can't speak for everyone) tend to think of where the character ends up--the growth they achieve over the course of the story. But in order to get to a high place, you have to start low, and that's what I messed up.
In the case of the next(?) Alumita book, I arrived at one of the two main characters in an unusual way. She (call her "S" for now) was a side character that I created just to give the other main character someone to talk to, but when I realized I was just writing Midnight Magic again, I shook everything up and made "S" the co-main character and then started over, keeping the setting. The problem that arose was that the character I started with wasn't the one the new story needed. "S" was fully formed and not going to change over the original story, but I didn't think of her in those terms when I started over. She started finished, with nowhere to go. She wasn't changing or adapting, she was just going along with everything without friction or setbacks. There was no story there, just the plot I had outlined. Sadly, it took months for me to realize what was going on, but eventually I had my eureka moment.
How?
Starting basic, with the two fundamental questions I should have asked about her at the beginning: what does she want? what does she need?
At first, you might think the answer is the same, but for a character to achieve true emotional/personal growth, they can't be*. In fact, the first one might not even be true. For example, in Midnight Magic, if you asked Vimika what she wanted, she would have answered 'to be left alone' or 'be drunk all the time so I don't have to deal with my feelings'. If she got that, there wouldn't be much story, would there? What she needed was to get out of her rut and realize she has something to offer the world, and that her path was one of denial and self-destruction. It was only through falling in love with Aurelai that Vimika gained some perspective and something to live for. Vimika was forced to grow and change by her relationship to Aurelai and all the responsibilities that came with her situation (which I won't go into because spoilers).
But that cathartic growth only happened because Vimika starts as a self-hating miserable drunk who lives under a tavern and answered the question of what she wanted wrong. I managed to start her in the right place and give her a solid direction to move in. Ultimately, the story gave her what she needed (unconsciously, of course. It has to be subtext, not literal), and that ultimate achievement, the direct contrast to the beginning and tying them together, is the great whoosh that makes a reader put the book down with a sigh of satisfaction.
The change, from giving up the want to accepting (and pursuing) the need is the path of an emotional character arc in a romance. It requires sacrifice. The character has to give up something for the sake of the other, and grow beyond their narrow view/way of thinking. But the process of falling in love makes them want to. That's the beauty, and the magic trick, in writing a satisfying romance, I believe.
Another way to think about starting a character arc is "what does she believe?". (I've also heard it called 'the lie the character believes'.) At the start of Hall of Mirrors, Millie believes her role at EVE is to be the physical protector of her sister witches; that she's really only good for punching and blocking bullets, a sentinel on the periphery who's not good at emotional stuff. But over the course of the story, the problem she is forced to deal with has no physical solution and can only be solved through emotional maturity; listening, empathy, giving advice. And it was her relationship to the deeply-empathetic nurse Elise that enabled that growth. Love changes Millie fundamentally, and continuously, over the course of the series.
Want vs. need is the dynamic I always go back to when I reach a story** impasse in a romance. Usually I don't know the answer when I start, I have to spend some time with the characters to figure it out. Fixing it can mean going back and ripping out a bunch of work though, but that's why time and distance can be so important on a project. I become less precious about things when I have enough time away from it, and when stuff needs to go, it needs to go. It's one of the big reasons I've moved to having more than one project going at a time now. Switching to another changes my headspace and gives me some breathing room to work things out in the back of my mind rather than beating the front against my keyboard and wondering why it isn't working.
I hope that isn't the case for you!
Thank you for reading, your patience and your support.
Now go forth and be excellent to each other! (And tell kissing stories! We need more of them.)
*To be clear, I'm only talking emotionally in the context of a romance. A mystery detective would answer both 'solve the murder', or the thriller secret agent 'stop the bomb from going off.' That's not character growth, those are plot goals, which is its own thing.
**Story, not plot. Story=character change, plot=what happens. In a romance, the latter is a tool to achieve the former, and I can usually figure out what needs to happen once I know why.
As a quasi-update to set the stage, I'm currently working on two books, and in both cases I smacked headlong into a wall. Neither story was progressing the way I wanted them to and I simply couldn't force my way forward anymore. Like, sitting at the keyboard and just... nothing happening. It's a scary and frustrating feeling, but being away for awhile helped immensely because it gave me exactly what I needed: perspective. And distance. Enough to go back and ask fundamental questions about the story and really dig into WTF was going on.
Turns out, both had the same problem: characters starting in the wrong place.
When we think of character arcs, we (okay, me. I can't speak for everyone) tend to think of where the character ends up--the growth they achieve over the course of the story. But in order to get to a high place, you have to start low, and that's what I messed up.
In the case of the next(?) Alumita book, I arrived at one of the two main characters in an unusual way. She (call her "S" for now) was a side character that I created just to give the other main character someone to talk to, but when I realized I was just writing Midnight Magic again, I shook everything up and made "S" the co-main character and then started over, keeping the setting. The problem that arose was that the character I started with wasn't the one the new story needed. "S" was fully formed and not going to change over the original story, but I didn't think of her in those terms when I started over. She started finished, with nowhere to go. She wasn't changing or adapting, she was just going along with everything without friction or setbacks. There was no story there, just the plot I had outlined. Sadly, it took months for me to realize what was going on, but eventually I had my eureka moment.
How?
Starting basic, with the two fundamental questions I should have asked about her at the beginning: what does she want? what does she need?
At first, you might think the answer is the same, but for a character to achieve true emotional/personal growth, they can't be*. In fact, the first one might not even be true. For example, in Midnight Magic, if you asked Vimika what she wanted, she would have answered 'to be left alone' or 'be drunk all the time so I don't have to deal with my feelings'. If she got that, there wouldn't be much story, would there? What she needed was to get out of her rut and realize she has something to offer the world, and that her path was one of denial and self-destruction. It was only through falling in love with Aurelai that Vimika gained some perspective and something to live for. Vimika was forced to grow and change by her relationship to Aurelai and all the responsibilities that came with her situation (which I won't go into because spoilers).
But that cathartic growth only happened because Vimika starts as a self-hating miserable drunk who lives under a tavern and answered the question of what she wanted wrong. I managed to start her in the right place and give her a solid direction to move in. Ultimately, the story gave her what she needed (unconsciously, of course. It has to be subtext, not literal), and that ultimate achievement, the direct contrast to the beginning and tying them together, is the great whoosh that makes a reader put the book down with a sigh of satisfaction.
The change, from giving up the want to accepting (and pursuing) the need is the path of an emotional character arc in a romance. It requires sacrifice. The character has to give up something for the sake of the other, and grow beyond their narrow view/way of thinking. But the process of falling in love makes them want to. That's the beauty, and the magic trick, in writing a satisfying romance, I believe.
Another way to think about starting a character arc is "what does she believe?". (I've also heard it called 'the lie the character believes'.) At the start of Hall of Mirrors, Millie believes her role at EVE is to be the physical protector of her sister witches; that she's really only good for punching and blocking bullets, a sentinel on the periphery who's not good at emotional stuff. But over the course of the story, the problem she is forced to deal with has no physical solution and can only be solved through emotional maturity; listening, empathy, giving advice. And it was her relationship to the deeply-empathetic nurse Elise that enabled that growth. Love changes Millie fundamentally, and continuously, over the course of the series.
Want vs. need is the dynamic I always go back to when I reach a story** impasse in a romance. Usually I don't know the answer when I start, I have to spend some time with the characters to figure it out. Fixing it can mean going back and ripping out a bunch of work though, but that's why time and distance can be so important on a project. I become less precious about things when I have enough time away from it, and when stuff needs to go, it needs to go. It's one of the big reasons I've moved to having more than one project going at a time now. Switching to another changes my headspace and gives me some breathing room to work things out in the back of my mind rather than beating the front against my keyboard and wondering why it isn't working.
I hope that isn't the case for you!
Thank you for reading, your patience and your support.
Now go forth and be excellent to each other! (And tell kissing stories! We need more of them.)
*To be clear, I'm only talking emotionally in the context of a romance. A mystery detective would answer both 'solve the murder', or the thriller secret agent 'stop the bomb from going off.' That's not character growth, those are plot goals, which is its own thing.
**Story, not plot. Story=character change, plot=what happens. In a romance, the latter is a tool to achieve the former, and I can usually figure out what needs to happen once I know why.
July 18, 2023
Free Book!
This week, I'm making The Fires of Winter available for free as part of IHeartSapphic's Historical Fiction Week celebration!
Details here, including all the other fabulous books that are on sale. Even if they aren't, you still might find something to pique your interest!
Details here, including all the other fabulous books that are on sale. Even if they aren't, you still might find something to pique your interest!
May 22, 2023
My A.I. 180 (Why I Won't Be Using It)
Last month I wrote here about using AI (ChatGPT in particular) to help brainstorm a project, and I want to state here in the opening paragraph that I won't be using it anymore and that I have scrapped the story I used it with.
I waded into the AI waters ignorant of just how they worked, but after further research and the wider publicization of issues on just how these language models are trained (including the wide-scale scraping of content from the internet, largely without the consent of the authors) and other issues raised due to the ongoing WGA writer's strike, I can no longer in good conscience make use of any of these tools in their current form. If I don't want my work fed into these models, I can't turn around and use them when many other authors who already had their work... let's say 'inputted', for legal reasons, feel the same way. These tools are/were new and exciting, and advocated by leading voices in the self-publishing community, and I was vulnerable to a seemingly-easy way to climb out of the writing rut I was stuck in. It was easy. Too easy. But no more.
Things are changing so fast right now it's easy to get swept up in the hype and promises of quick and easy (almost magical) solutions, and that's what happened to me. There are so many issues swirling around AI in every field it touches, and there are no real laws or firm ethical boundaries set up yet. We are each having to find our own right now. Ethics, copyright and just what it means to be creative (and what is creative) are all swirling around in this together, and it's unsettling. Even scary. What goes into these models is largely a black box full of proprietary technology and algorithms that seem, to me, to fall directly in line with Ian Malcolm's (Jeff Goldblum) line from Jurassic Park: "You were so obsessed over whether you could, you didn't stop to think if you should."
I have stopped, and decided I shouldn't. It's cost me a story I was starting to really like, but luckily only one, and it was still in the outlining stage. C'est la vie. It was a brief, flawed dalliance, but I learned from it, and can publish my future books with the same pride (and clear conscience) that I've published all the others with.
What others do is up to them. We are all going to have to stop and think about could versus should with this stuff, and in some cases it won't be easy. I can't tell you what to do, only what I've done and why as an example. What I will say as advice is this: don't fall for the hype, do your research, decide for yourself and be transparent about what you decide. Just because there are loud voices telling you you have to do this or else you're f*cked doesn't make it true. Everything is up in the air and it's just as likely that they're wrong (and f*cked for publishing robot-tainted books). In my last post I cheekily referred to AI as Ultron. But guess what? Ultron lost in the end.
I want my stories to be unequivocally mine, even if they take longer and don't do everything they 'should' do according to god-knows-what marketing BS. My characters, and their stories, come from my heart, and feeling along with them. Storytelling is as old as humanity, and should come from human hearts. And belong to human hearts.
In times of change there will be mistakes. The most important thing to do when that happens is try to learn from them so they don't become permanent.
I waded into the AI waters ignorant of just how they worked, but after further research and the wider publicization of issues on just how these language models are trained (including the wide-scale scraping of content from the internet, largely without the consent of the authors) and other issues raised due to the ongoing WGA writer's strike, I can no longer in good conscience make use of any of these tools in their current form. If I don't want my work fed into these models, I can't turn around and use them when many other authors who already had their work... let's say 'inputted', for legal reasons, feel the same way. These tools are/were new and exciting, and advocated by leading voices in the self-publishing community, and I was vulnerable to a seemingly-easy way to climb out of the writing rut I was stuck in. It was easy. Too easy. But no more.
Things are changing so fast right now it's easy to get swept up in the hype and promises of quick and easy (almost magical) solutions, and that's what happened to me. There are so many issues swirling around AI in every field it touches, and there are no real laws or firm ethical boundaries set up yet. We are each having to find our own right now. Ethics, copyright and just what it means to be creative (and what is creative) are all swirling around in this together, and it's unsettling. Even scary. What goes into these models is largely a black box full of proprietary technology and algorithms that seem, to me, to fall directly in line with Ian Malcolm's (Jeff Goldblum) line from Jurassic Park: "You were so obsessed over whether you could, you didn't stop to think if you should."
I have stopped, and decided I shouldn't. It's cost me a story I was starting to really like, but luckily only one, and it was still in the outlining stage. C'est la vie. It was a brief, flawed dalliance, but I learned from it, and can publish my future books with the same pride (and clear conscience) that I've published all the others with.
What others do is up to them. We are all going to have to stop and think about could versus should with this stuff, and in some cases it won't be easy. I can't tell you what to do, only what I've done and why as an example. What I will say as advice is this: don't fall for the hype, do your research, decide for yourself and be transparent about what you decide. Just because there are loud voices telling you you have to do this or else you're f*cked doesn't make it true. Everything is up in the air and it's just as likely that they're wrong (and f*cked for publishing robot-tainted books). In my last post I cheekily referred to AI as Ultron. But guess what? Ultron lost in the end.
I want my stories to be unequivocally mine, even if they take longer and don't do everything they 'should' do according to god-knows-what marketing BS. My characters, and their stories, come from my heart, and feeling along with them. Storytelling is as old as humanity, and should come from human hearts. And belong to human hearts.
In times of change there will be mistakes. The most important thing to do when that happens is try to learn from them so they don't become permanent.
May 18, 2023
The Rebuilding Process
After a great deal of faffing about and countless fits and starts, I'm finally reasonably sure what my next book is going to be. Though I still have three irons in the fire, the first one I pull out will very likely be the third Alumita book (code name BtS), but no matter which one it is, it will be my ninth.
After writing and publishing eight books in seven years, you would think I have a firm handle on how I do things, with a streamlined process that's pretty much a science at this point. You would think. Alas, that's not the case. But that doesn't stop me from trying to replicate what worked before, or forgetting.
I don't know if it was the pandemic or the string of personal things that blew up my process (probably both), but I feel like I'm having to re-learn how to write a book every time I start one now. I look at my old notes and panic that I haven't done the same thing, but then I look at the progress I've made and it's more solid than past books at this stage, with a lot less wasted effort (i.e., what I'm getting done is more likely to make the finished version.) I'm finding different things at different times along the way. It's weird.
All of this is coming up now because of good news, ironically. [BtS] is closer than ever to being a real story, through things I only thought of mid-process, almost halfway to my target word count. Fundamental things about the story I didn't realize until I was writing it. For a long time I've been telling myself I'm an outliner/plotter type of writer, and I think that has been a disservice to myself. The Ashes books I did outline; they were each part of one bigger story, so I had to know what was happening, when and why in order to keep the series to a reasonable length with a definitive ending. The Alumita books aren't like that. They all stand alone, with only a shared world and magic rules that I have to keep track of. I can do whatever I want, otherwise.
And after writing the final two Ashes books back-to-back, I think I forgot that. I forgot that I feel my way through a romance. I forgot that I was allowed to, and that the notebooks I have for the previous two Alumita stories aren't the sum total of the work I did, just what survived. I forgot that when I'm in the middle of a romance, I'm not really thinking about it, just letting it develop organically; letting the characters speak and tell me what needs to happen next. I was putting way too much pressure on myself to figure it out ahead of time to try to get a book out faster (Pax Victoria came out eight months ago. My average between book releases until now has been seven months), which in the end slowed me way down. I completely forgot that I basically wrote Midnight Magic in four months without a solid outline. I had a beginning, a main character, a general premise, a generic romance structure and a handful of other ideas, then felt my way through the rest. The final book is nothing like the outline attempts I did make.
It's almost cliche at this point for authors to say that their characters talk to them, but it's true. All of my panic and hand-wringing about not knowing what the f*ck I was doing anymore, bouncing around between books was settled by just spending time with the characters for a few weeks, and letting them speak, to me and each other. I had to give them room to develop, not insist that they fit into this box I had already designed for them. I still hit quicksand sometimes when it comes to the external plot, but that is resolving itself little by little as I progress (rewarding myself with kissy bits in between helps). The more ground I cover, the more obvious it is where I'm going (and where I need to go). Building blocks, stepping stones, choose your metaphor, I'm not trying to build the house of cards from the top anymore.
Imposter syndrome, cratered self-confidence, crippling self-doubt, the feeling of being completely unmoored or outright lost, tragedy and crises, they've all been close companions of mine as of late. The last few months have been... not great, and in a way, I've spent most of this year in a constant state of rebuilding.
But in the end, the great irony of the last few weeks is that I have sped up by slowing down, and remembered by forgetting. I can still do this.
There is no one way to write a book, and certainly no one way to write two. Or nine.
After writing and publishing eight books in seven years, you would think I have a firm handle on how I do things, with a streamlined process that's pretty much a science at this point. You would think. Alas, that's not the case. But that doesn't stop me from trying to replicate what worked before, or forgetting.
I don't know if it was the pandemic or the string of personal things that blew up my process (probably both), but I feel like I'm having to re-learn how to write a book every time I start one now. I look at my old notes and panic that I haven't done the same thing, but then I look at the progress I've made and it's more solid than past books at this stage, with a lot less wasted effort (i.e., what I'm getting done is more likely to make the finished version.) I'm finding different things at different times along the way. It's weird.
All of this is coming up now because of good news, ironically. [BtS] is closer than ever to being a real story, through things I only thought of mid-process, almost halfway to my target word count. Fundamental things about the story I didn't realize until I was writing it. For a long time I've been telling myself I'm an outliner/plotter type of writer, and I think that has been a disservice to myself. The Ashes books I did outline; they were each part of one bigger story, so I had to know what was happening, when and why in order to keep the series to a reasonable length with a definitive ending. The Alumita books aren't like that. They all stand alone, with only a shared world and magic rules that I have to keep track of. I can do whatever I want, otherwise.
And after writing the final two Ashes books back-to-back, I think I forgot that. I forgot that I feel my way through a romance. I forgot that I was allowed to, and that the notebooks I have for the previous two Alumita stories aren't the sum total of the work I did, just what survived. I forgot that when I'm in the middle of a romance, I'm not really thinking about it, just letting it develop organically; letting the characters speak and tell me what needs to happen next. I was putting way too much pressure on myself to figure it out ahead of time to try to get a book out faster (Pax Victoria came out eight months ago. My average between book releases until now has been seven months), which in the end slowed me way down. I completely forgot that I basically wrote Midnight Magic in four months without a solid outline. I had a beginning, a main character, a general premise, a generic romance structure and a handful of other ideas, then felt my way through the rest. The final book is nothing like the outline attempts I did make.
It's almost cliche at this point for authors to say that their characters talk to them, but it's true. All of my panic and hand-wringing about not knowing what the f*ck I was doing anymore, bouncing around between books was settled by just spending time with the characters for a few weeks, and letting them speak, to me and each other. I had to give them room to develop, not insist that they fit into this box I had already designed for them. I still hit quicksand sometimes when it comes to the external plot, but that is resolving itself little by little as I progress (rewarding myself with kissy bits in between helps). The more ground I cover, the more obvious it is where I'm going (and where I need to go). Building blocks, stepping stones, choose your metaphor, I'm not trying to build the house of cards from the top anymore.
Imposter syndrome, cratered self-confidence, crippling self-doubt, the feeling of being completely unmoored or outright lost, tragedy and crises, they've all been close companions of mine as of late. The last few months have been... not great, and in a way, I've spent most of this year in a constant state of rebuilding.
But in the end, the great irony of the last few weeks is that I have sped up by slowing down, and remembered by forgetting. I can still do this.
There is no one way to write a book, and certainly no one way to write two. Or nine.
April 28, 2023
Learning to Dual-Wield
One of the things I've always wanted to be able to do but never managed is work on more than one book at the same time. I wrote the Alumita books in between Ashes books, but it was always all-or-nothing; I never bounced back and forth.
The Ashes books took up a lot of real estate in my mind, and the first three were the first novels I ever wrote. They were hard to compartmentalize, and I think I sometimes felt like if I ever split my attention I would never get the characters back. Midnight Magic was a needed break from the series, and the characters came back just fine; I even missed them a little. It taught me I could write more than one story, just never on the same day, or even on alternate days.
The biggest thing I learned, however, was that having something else to work on was remarkably freeing, a kind of escape hatch for when things weren't working. That was how Midnight started: a break from what would become Colours of Dawn.
Recently, I've been allowing myself to do that more and more, and it's starting to become normal. That's how you build habits, I guess, but it wasn't really my intention.
One thing that has helped is to have the books in different stages or states. Right now I have three books I'm actively working on -- one I have outlined, one I am feeling my way through, and one that is still in the research/series bible-creation phase. If I get stuck on one for whatever reason, I jump to the other. Sometimes it takes a minute to get my bearings, but so far I've had much more success than ever before at juggling multiple projects. I think having the one in the research phase helps. There's no pressure to write, I can just do research and brainstorm, which is still writing, just in a different form. It gives my brain time to chew on things in the background while still being productive, and that is the kind of permission I think I needed to give myself.
So how is it going? Pretty good! For example, I was having a pretty 'meh' day on the drafting front, so I switched to brainstorming mode and ended up solving a huge problem with a single decision that suddenly seemed obvious! One I had been beating my head against the wall trying to come up with for a while. Getting away from it, doing something else and coming back freed things up in ways that trying to force it never did. Having the projects be distinct from each other helps, too. One is my first attempt at doing a first-person narrative, and that's pretty hard to confuse with any of the others.
From thinking I couldn't do it to wondering why I ever thought that, I think this new way of working can be best summed up as 'freeing'. Not being locked into one thing and knowing I can hit the ground running (and that here is ground) if I need to bail has made the whole process feel more agile, and honestly better for my brain. Things are always fresh, and moments of satisfaction more frequent. I don't feel stagnant or tired as much anymore, either.
So if things aren't working and you're feeling stuck, give another one of your ideas a spin and see what happens! Change is good, and progress is progress, and you just might end up doing something you've never done before. And more of it! Just remember to go back -- who knows what you've figured out in the meantime? Only you, and only if you don't give up.
The Ashes books took up a lot of real estate in my mind, and the first three were the first novels I ever wrote. They were hard to compartmentalize, and I think I sometimes felt like if I ever split my attention I would never get the characters back. Midnight Magic was a needed break from the series, and the characters came back just fine; I even missed them a little. It taught me I could write more than one story, just never on the same day, or even on alternate days.
The biggest thing I learned, however, was that having something else to work on was remarkably freeing, a kind of escape hatch for when things weren't working. That was how Midnight started: a break from what would become Colours of Dawn.
Recently, I've been allowing myself to do that more and more, and it's starting to become normal. That's how you build habits, I guess, but it wasn't really my intention.
One thing that has helped is to have the books in different stages or states. Right now I have three books I'm actively working on -- one I have outlined, one I am feeling my way through, and one that is still in the research/series bible-creation phase. If I get stuck on one for whatever reason, I jump to the other. Sometimes it takes a minute to get my bearings, but so far I've had much more success than ever before at juggling multiple projects. I think having the one in the research phase helps. There's no pressure to write, I can just do research and brainstorm, which is still writing, just in a different form. It gives my brain time to chew on things in the background while still being productive, and that is the kind of permission I think I needed to give myself.
So how is it going? Pretty good! For example, I was having a pretty 'meh' day on the drafting front, so I switched to brainstorming mode and ended up solving a huge problem with a single decision that suddenly seemed obvious! One I had been beating my head against the wall trying to come up with for a while. Getting away from it, doing something else and coming back freed things up in ways that trying to force it never did. Having the projects be distinct from each other helps, too. One is my first attempt at doing a first-person narrative, and that's pretty hard to confuse with any of the others.
From thinking I couldn't do it to wondering why I ever thought that, I think this new way of working can be best summed up as 'freeing'. Not being locked into one thing and knowing I can hit the ground running (and that here is ground) if I need to bail has made the whole process feel more agile, and honestly better for my brain. Things are always fresh, and moments of satisfaction more frequent. I don't feel stagnant or tired as much anymore, either.
So if things aren't working and you're feeling stuck, give another one of your ideas a spin and see what happens! Change is good, and progress is progress, and you just might end up doing something you've never done before. And more of it! Just remember to go back -- who knows what you've figured out in the meantime? Only you, and only if you don't give up.
