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.
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