First Draft Done

I finished writing the final chapter for Hidden Magic. I’ve polished enough chapters that I can rewrite as I load them from now on. Which is good. It means I can go back to working on Nick and Laurel again while I load two or three chapters a week onto Vella.

I have to say, my experiment to write two books at the same time was pretty much a failure. But it doesn’t really matter. Hidden Magic filled my mind and wouldn’t let go. I’d finish a chapter and the next one demanded to be put on paper. Now, I know. I’m the author. I could have told Hidden Magic to take a nap and wait its turn, but writing doesn’t always work that way. I’d write one idea, and then the next one started to flow. And the ideas never quit until the story wrapped itself up. It’s short. A little more than 25,000 words, so only a novella. But I’m all right with that.

I don’t have stories “happen” very often. Almost never. So while the ideas came, I put fingers to keys to make them come alive. I’ve had miserable success with paranormals, and I might not have any with Hidden Magic either, but sometimes, my brain just needs something new to keep it inspired. If I don’t break my usual routine once in a while, I start to feel stale.

C.S. Boyack wrote a great blog about that for Story Empire today. https://storyempire.com/2023/08/21/writers-toolbox-revisited/ I’ve learned a lot as a writer from reading that blog. I’ve been writing for a long time, but I still like to read about the mechanics of our craft off and on, just to keep me fresh, to recharge my batteries. And Craig’s right. I like to write shorter pieces when I experiment. Then if I bomb, it’s not the end of the world. I don’t hide under my blankets, suck my thumb, and get depressed.

While I was wrapping up Hidden Magic, more and more ideas started coming to me for Nick and Laurel’s Facing the Music. I’d sort of hit a wall on that one, and more ideas were trickling in but not enough. Taking a break from it has energized me. I’m ready to give it my all again. I came up with an idea for a cover, but it’s so not like anything I’ve done before, I probably won’t use it. Still, covers inspire me, so it works for now. Nick and Laurel are a little darker than my Jazzi mysteries, so it has the right mood.

There was a time that I really wanted to write a Louis Kincaid type mystery, something more serious that readers would take more seriously. When I sat down to plot one out, though, it’s not that I didn’t think I could do. It’s that I decided going that dark wasn’t for me. I’m more satisfied with writing what I write now. I don’t know if that will show in my stories or not, but as long as I’m happy with them, that’s enough.