It’s Done–Now What?
I am so thrilled! Last Sunday I worked my tail off and finished A Rake’s Reward the last of my Merry Men Quartet books. I’ve been working on that book for a lot longer than I had originally intended, mainly because I had to take a few months off to deal with moving, but also because the edits to the original book (Wooing Miss Whately published by Zebra Books) ended up being a lot more intensive than I had originally planned.
But it’s done! Yay!
Um… Now what?
What do you do when you finish a book? Do you take a few days off? Or do you jump right in to your next book?
I jumped, slowly.
It’s been a busy week for me in terms of formatting jobs, and I’ve also had quite a few evening activities which have taken me from my work much earlier than I usually quit for the day, so I’ve started my next project out slowly.
Oddly—for me—the first thing I did for my new project was start with the characters. Thinking about them, reading what I had already written about them (I’m going back to a previously begun book, which I got about 1/4 of the way into writing before stopping to work on something else—which I thing is another blog post topic all on its own).
My husband complains mightily that, for a writer of character driven books, I always start with my plot, so for Rake and now for Falling (my new WIP), I’m starting with the characters. Who are they, what do they want and how are those goals and desires going to drive my story?
Right now those questions are being answered in generalities rather than specific, concrete needs: “My hero wants to save the world, one kid at a time” instead of “My hero wants to help save Shawn, a kid wrongly accused of selling drugs”. (Um, yeah, I know that sounds really strange coming from a writer of historical romances, but this book is a time-travel, which bops back and forth between contemporary Washington, DC and Medieval England and the majority of time is spent in the contemporary world. In other words, it’s going to be really different from anything I’ve ever written (I promise, I’m going to explore that in my next post).) The point is that I’ve got to get specific. I’ve got to figure out not the broad ideas—saving the world—but specifics which will drive my plot… No, which will be my plot.
This is what I’m beginning to work on. As I go, I’m figuring out how I’d like to organize myself for this book. I tried 3×5 card on a bulletin board for Rake, but it was more work to fill out the cards than to just write the scene, so I don’t think I’ll try that again.
My old standard “W” plot line is going to be essential, but for this book I’m actually going to need four overlapping Ws for my four, no, five plot lines(!)–and now I begin to understand why I stopped writing this book. It’s a little overwhelming, but I’ll get it straightened out and tell you all about next week.
My big point here is that I’ve just finished writing a book and I can hardly wait to delve straight into the next one. It’s tugging at me. Yes, I would kind of like a bit of a break, especially since my non-writing life is really busy right now, but it all comes down to the essence of me: I’m a writer. I spin stories and create characters in my head and I’ve got to figure them out and write them down. That is who I am and what I do.
How about you? Do you jump right in to your next project when you finish one, or do you take some time off?
Oh, and while you’re here, take look at my front page and see what you think! I’d love to hear your comments on how the site is shaping up. There’s still a good bit of work left to do, but I’m taking it, like my new book, slowly.
