May 12, 2021
Day 219, Week 31
- Words: 77,397
- Revised Words v2: 45,227
- Ego Size: Orange
- Emotional State: Coming out of the fog
The Book
The past week at work was brutal. And I spent a ton of time editing and reviewing other people’s stories rather than my own (around 40k in words in 7 days).
All that being said, however, I still managed to revise my 10k, even if it wasn’t my best work.
As I worked on the next set of 10k words, I hit a snag. I have my MC investigating something that needs to be investigated for the mystery. But I failed to adequately give a reason why that wasn’t just because she needs to for the plot (she does).
What it meant was that I came to a screeching halt in my revisions because I needed to find a reason she would get involved. One that didn’t involve a ton of rewrites. Because, nope, not doing that.
I often tell my writers to use handwriting as a way to get over writer’s block, because science proves it uses a different part of the brain and can jump start your creative juices. Instead of staring at the screen while I figured out how to make my plot work, I sat at the kitchen counter with a notebook and pen and just wrote down all the potential reasons my MC would investigate.
None of them were very good, but I continued to sit there, reading what I wrote and thinking so more.
Finally, the light bulb went on. I had an idea. A very good idea. One that ties into the plot, enhances one piece of it, and leads to a scene that is before the big All is Lost moment. This means a much better emotional ride in that section of the book. Now, instead of dropping from a big high into the darkest of days, she’s sliding down. The steam train is gaining momentum emotionally down-down-down to rock bottom. It is a much better transition than what I had.
And it’s good. It’s not wiggle in my seat good, but it’s almost delicious good. I’ll take it!
Life & Marketing
In other news, my presale campaign has completely funded, so my book will be published at the end of August 2021! I am excited, but I have to say that the fanfare for it was lacking because I was brain dead from all the reviewing I did. But yay! I can officially say I’ll be a published author in 2021. I’m sure there’ll be more freakouts on that later.
I have started cover research and I have to say, US covers aren’t nearly as much fun as foreign ones. They all like pretty much the same for my genre of fantasy mystery – a picture of the main character on the cover doing something mysterious. I’m going to need to do more research.
This week hasn’t been as crazy for work, which means that I’ve had some down time to write, to do life a bit more, to pay more attention to social media. Today wasn’t great for that – too much to do all at once – but I still feel like I’m more present than I have been.
And, not that you care, but in my house, we don’t have pets. We don’t have pets not because I’m not seriously jonesing for a pet, but because my husband is not a fan. He likes animals just fine, just doesn’t want to live with them. And that’s alright. I knew what I was signing on for and I’m good with that, especially since I’m going to be the crazy cat lady once he corks it.
But, as part of our garden makeover/work/pain point, we went to the local nursery to look at ground cover plants and to figure out what we want to do. While there, we wandered past some lime and lemon bushes (little ones). And decided to go for it. So now we have a lemon tree that won’t be planted in the ground this year, because it needs more time. And my husband named it.
The plant is Eddie. We’ve been dutifully moving Eddie in and out to give him sun during the day and remove him from the cold at night. The plan is to repot him in a pot that will fit for the next 1.5 years and winter him inside. And then, we’ll plant him next year in the garden and hope he survives.
And that, my friends, is how I got a pet plant named Eddie.
runoff water. He’ll be repotted soon.
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