July 6, 2022
Week 91
Emotional State: I’ll figure it out.
Books
I’m drowning in editing and yet I still decided to start a reader magnet for my paranormal cozy series last night. I love all the writing and I love the progress, but the editing work is piling up and quite frankly, it can get a bit old.
The thought that I have to reread all of these stories multiple times back-to-back is a bit soul killing. To be fair, people warned me this was going to happen. I need to edit and write at the same time or at least alternate between the two on a monthly basis. But that’s not where I am.
So, editing hell it is.
The other issue with having multiple projects on the go is voice and keeping it all consistent. It’s tricky to move from first person, 40+ MC (cozy mystery), to third person, 25-year-old MC (urban fantasy). And now with the reader magnet a different 40+ MC, but one who lives in the ’80s (!) instead, it’s getting harder and harder to keep them all straight.
I see why, now, authors recommend you stick to one POV. But eh, this is where I’m at and I’m moving forward as if it was all planned (it was), and I know what I’m doing (I don’t).
In other news, I’m having fun with my ’80s reader magnet and remembering the key things I need to include in the manuscript, besides music of course. So far, I’ve got original Coke, rotary phones with long cords, roller-skates, and lots of neon. I’m trying my best to remember slang as well, but it’s been a while. I know “I cut you down so low” was a thing then, so that’ll be in there. Valley girl speak, maybe some surfer terms.
Maybe there’ll be pop rocks and coke… Oh, wouldn’t that be a great way for someone to die, except that’s not what killed them? I need to think this through.
Nah. I already know what happens and why it happens. It’s a short story, so the mystery is simpler than a full novel. And that leads me to another problem I have.
Writing a mystery in a short story format is hard, especially for me. I’m a long-winded kind of girl. My last reader magnet was supposed to be around 10k and it’s already at 17k, with a few scenes still to write. For the cozy magnet, how to cram it in with all the setup, world building, and relationship building and keep it short is a puzzle I have no idea how to solve.
Eh, I’ll figure it out.