Midweek #ROW80 Check-In

Where, oh where, has our little Kait gone

I haven’t been posting.  Well, obviously.  We shifted formats for ROW80 to the FB group, so I’ve just kinda let the blog languish.  The name of the game all year has been buckle down, nose to the grindstone, get stuff done.  And I have.  Grand total, I put out, let’s see…how many books?

  1. Just For This Moment
  2. Virtually Yours anthology (now out of print, it contained the original novella version of Wish I Might)
  3. Turn My World Around
  4. If I Didn’t Care
  5. Wish I Might (expanded novel edition)
  6. Dance Me A Dream (part of the Romancing The Holidays anthology, releasing November 25th. Preorder yours today!  :end shameless plug:)

So, yeah.  Six books.  I also wrote Book 2 of my Sooper Seekrit Project.  I wrote Book 1 for my NaNo project last year, and I didn’t put in adequate planning, so right now I’m back to that one doing a true second draft.

OH MY GOD I HATE TRUE SECOND DRAFTS.

I haven’t had to do one since I started using The Story Toolkit and given that this is coming on the heels of If I Didn’t Care (which was a total gift book that practically wrote itself), I’m struggling.  I was already behind schedule on this book (I was meant to be finishing it this week and starting on Book 3), and then the election happened and all the fallout from that has been terribly distracting.  And, of course, life stuff.  I can’t keep my head in this book.  When I do a read through of what I have, I like it fine, I’m interested, I think it’s going well.  But I haven’t been able to maintain that connection with my characters where we’re having those constant mental conversations.  And that’s made this book feel like a Job with a capital J.  Which means I’m really not having fun.  Not that you always have fun when you’re a career writer, but just…UGH.

I can’t decide what I want to do.  Some of the changes I’m making to the story will necessitate changes to Book 2 (relatively minor, comparatively).  I’m contemplating possibly setting Book 1 aside for a little bit and going ahead with those revisions to Book 2.  Then I can send it on to my editor while I go back to fight with Book 1.  I have already given up any aspirations of making my original deadlines this year.  I don’t even know what the story to Book 3 is yet.  So I’m shooting to have Books 1 and 2 finished and Book 3 outlined by the end of the year.  We’ll see.  But I’m just…in a funk.

3 thoughts on “Midweek #ROW80 Check-In

  1. I know that feeling. My NaNo count went down on Monday, because my husband had the day off, and I spent it with him. Tuesday was voting and a write-in – and then I was up until 3am THURSDAY, because my kids needed to talk and hang out after the results came in, and, once they fell asleep late in the morning…I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t write either….

    Things are getting more normal with my writing, and I’m taking actions to be the best me I can , regardless of my dismal view of the consequences of the election….

  2. Not that I relish your pain, but it’s nice to know experienced authors go through the same tortures of the damned that I’m currently running up against with this year’s Nano project. BTW, I did use your Story Toolkit and it’s been a big help. And I read my prologue/hook to my critique group today and they were very enthusiastic. It’s just feeling like a slog when I sit down to crank out my daily quota (I’m at 43K+ by now, maybe halfway to 2/3 finished with the story line).

    Maybe I need to start talking to my characters.

    Seriously, thanks for sharing. This helps me know I’m not just off in the poppies, or at least maybe I’m not 🙂

  3. Decisions, decisions. I’m sure you’ll figure it out, or it will figure itself out. Just don’t sweat it. Sit back and relax for a little bit and let all those written words ferment for a while, so that when you get back to them, they will have aged like fine wine.

    Best wishes!

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