Spring Break
It’s officially the start of spring break, and I definitely need it.
As much as I love this new job — and I absolutely love every single second — it is hard. It’s draining, it’s frustrating, it’s complicated, and it’s fulfilling. I am always tired, and often too much so to do anything after work besides eat and watch television. Emotionally, mentally, and physically I’m drained most days. This means that my writing and school work has suffered some. I had hoped that I would have a completed rough draft of my sequel novel by the end of March, but that is definitely not going to happen. And I’m allowing myself to accept that rather than push through to try and make that goal. Ultimately, I need to maintain any amount of creative energy I can for when I get the last round of feedback from my beta readers. My debut novel will need more revision, and I will not be pushing out my publishing date.
April and half of May will be busy with revisions so that I can get the final manuscript to my designer for the interior design of my book. My goal is that, by the end of May, I’ll have ARCs to send to book reviewers to try and amp up anticipation for the book. And then I’ll need to plan my book launch party, and I don’t even know when that will be.
One thing I have to remind myself is that, yes, my book is going to be imperfect. I will not have every single flaw addressed and fixed before the release, and I may not be completely satisfied with the finished result (is any writer ever completely satisfied with anything they write?), but that’s okay. It’s my debut novel. And if I refuse to publish anything until it’s perfect, I’ll never publish anything at all. So I’m embracing the reality that my manuscript will be flawed, but hopefully it will still be enjoyed by those who read it.
And then that will give me a goal for the sequel: make that manuscript better than the one before it. Plus, I can always go back and revise the first novel and re-release it if I feel that’s necessary. A lot of writers do this with their first few books, so there’s no reason why I can’t do the same thing. Moreover, I can already see how the sequel is going to be a better book. A Kiss of Glass has been a lot of first for me, so I need to give myself permission to learn as I go, and make changes later if I need to.
This is the writing journey, the writer’s life, the artist’s struggle.
Beyond the writing and the new career, I’m also inching closer to the end of this semester. I know what my final paper topic is going to be for my Victorian Literature class, and I know what I want to write my final paper on for my Cyberpunk class. So those are two big things I have pinned down. One prospectus has been written, and the other will be written and turned in next week. And I am very much looking forward to summer break! My goal is to take as much of the break off as I can, which will mean a lot of saving and cutting down on spending, but my hope is that I can spend the summer getting as much written in my sequel as possible.
If I can complete the rough draft and then get through another two or three rounds of revision, I’ll be in a great place going into the next school year. Not only is fall semester my last semester in this second masters program, but it will also be the start of the new school year for my career as a teacher. I imagine it will take me time to adjust back to my work schedule after a whole summer off, and I’ll be writing my master’s thesis, so how much free time I’ll have to focus on my creative writing, I don’t know. But I’d love to have a full three to four drafts done on the sequel before the end of 2023. And, if I can, I’d like to try and use NaNoWriMo to draft the third novel in my series. But we’ll see if that works out.
So much of the writing life is up in the air. I have to be flexible, not only with myself and my schedule, but with the manuscripts themselves, too. They need room to breathe, to grow, to become whatever it is they’re meant to. And hey, I’ve gotten so many firsts under my belt — first second draft of a novel, first third, fourth, and fifth drafts of a novel, first start of a sequel novel — I think it’s good to let myself have some extra breathing room.
Sending love and light to you all.
