So it wasn’t Clockwork Angel. That’s actually migrated to the To Be Read shelf (aren’t you proud? I resisted!) while I wind up Shadow Hills and The Demon’s Covenant.
My brain took advantage of my stepping away from Devil’s Eye to steer me toward the brand new shiny red spiral bound notebook that I’d forgotten about at the bottom of a bag of stuff I forgot to put away a month ago (life has been crazy, don’t judge). Then it steered me toward my favorite pen, the Pilot Frixion (erasable!) and had me start organizing said notebook with parts from Pot’s Blueprint (which, on its own, has a tendency to make me to EEEEEEEP! and run away), a single chunk per page.
Then I just started spewing. I did sprints with Claire and filled up about 15 pages with notes. On Red. Yeah, the YA plot bunny that was SUPPOSED to be waiting. I feel very driven to write this story. In a rear up, grab me by the throat, pay attention to me damn it, kind of way.
Yes ma’am.
It’s all very old school. I haven’t written stuff down by hand (owing to my truly heinous handwriting) in years. I type so much faster and cleaner. But it was kind of nice. Having to write slow enough to be legible, I think it forces me to be better about organizing my thoughts before I actually put them down. Which is not at all a bad thing.
So I’ve actually made HUGE strides toward putting together the skeleton of that book. I would really like to sit down during my writing time this weekend and clearly hammer out my outline–all the scenes and what I want to show with them.
I think it kind of confirms something that’s been kicking around in my brain for a while: Too much of one thing does not a happy Kait make (unless you are talking about cookie dough). I’ve been hanging out in this Mirus world for 2 years. A lot of that time was developing lore and writing stuff that isn’t ever gonna see the light of day. Forsaken By Shadow was the third or fourth thing I wrote in that universe. But anyway, as much as I love it, I think I need a break from it and a chance to work on something wholly unrelated and different.
Somewhere in the middle of working on Red, I expect the solution to my problem in Devil’s Eye will rear up and say “Look at me!!!!”, and then I’ll go fix it. In the meantime, I’ll keep moving forward on something new. I think this is probably going to wind up being a pattern for me (I hope). Where I finish 1 Mirus story and 1 something else (of which I have a loooooooong list of possibilities) each year. I still plan on Devil’s Eye being my second release this year, albeit a very low key one, simply because it’s so much shorter and when the solution DOES occur to me, it won’t take long to finish. But I’m definitely excited about moving forward with Red.
3 thoughts on “Sneaky Sneaky! Chasing The Plot Bunny”
Oh, I am SO excited about Red! I’m glad you’re making good progress (at least partially via sprinting, yay!), and that you’re feeling a little better about things. I bet putting so much energy into Red will, like you said, help solve any issues with Devil’s Eye, and a break between bookworlds is always a good thing! 😀
And who knows? You may end up releasing Red first instead.
I doubt that just because it’s a full length novel as compared to a half-written 15k novelette that could be finished in 2 weeks if I just knew the specifics of what HAPPENED. 😀 But strides will be good.