The Business of Writing

What am I working on right now? DEFINITELY the things I am scheduled to be working on. Totally those things. Not other things that are not on my schedule.

If you’re tempted to say, “The lady doth protest too much,” well, you would be right. On the bright side, I did finish Trash Novel #1 as intended. My brilliant plans to figure out whether I was moving on to Nyx #3 or Aspect #3 have. . . not gone as intended. Which is to say I haven’t decided.

I’m poking at revisions on Valkyrie’s Call, poking at Trash Novel #2, because it’s easy, and reminding myself that according to my Amorphous Writing Schedule (yep, that’s really what I named the document) I actually don’t have a decision to make between Nyx or Aspect, because it claims I’m supposed to be outlining Nyx #3 as we speak.

But hey, it’s an amorphous schedule, right? I mean, maybe I shouldn’t have named my writing schedule something that is literally defined as, “lacking a clear structure or focus.”

Given the givens, I don’t have a whole lot more to report this month. April has been chock-full of little fires, mostly in the form of expensive things breaking and me hyperventilating (okay, fine, not literally) about where I will find the money to fix them.

Unfortunately, my life does require a vehicle. Vehicles are expensive, and I no longer have the time to diagnose my aging beauty’s occasional ailments. Well, I still diagnose them, and fortunately I have a really great mechanic who actually listens to me when I say things like, “The current issue is with the fuel injection system and here’s why.”

He is a very nice mechanic. I have been going to his shop for six or seven years now, and though I desperately want to get out of the desert, I shudder at the thought of finding a new auto repair shop, because it’s just so rare to find one that does good work AND doesn’t treat me like I’m an idiot because I have boobs. Le sigh.

I’m going to cut things off there, because I suspect further typing will only lead to increased interludes of rambling nonsense. I’m going to go write a book now. You know, if I can ever figure out which one to write.

March has been the month of trying to have fun. As usual, I am failing miserably at the task, the primary problem being that, for all my thirty-one-and-a-half years, I still haven’t figured out How To Fun. I’m that obnoxious person that thinks “fun” is a word for a useful hobby, like home renovation, learning a new language, hiking until you want to die, learning vehicle repair skills, and on and on, ad infinitum. (I did all of these things for a long time and now I actively hate all of them. Well, okay, if it’s demo on home renovation I’m still down because sledgehammers are fun).

In my college years, I played Final Fantasy games because I finally had control of my finances and could buy a Playstation2 (don’t give up on your dreams, kids!), and I think that was the last time I had genuine fun without strong feelings of guilt attached to it. If I have free time, I feel like I should be working. If I’m not working in that free time, it causes me no end of anxiety. There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere about my childhood being a desperate bid for approval I never received, but whatever, that’s what wine is for *lifts glass in toast*.

Anyway, at some brilliant point in January I decided that the way to get around this need for “useful fun” was to write a Trash Novel. The Trash Novel was to be a simply-plotted novel I could tear my way through in record time, going overboard on tropes, cheesy dialogue, cliche heroes and heroines, and generally just not giving a fuck about whether the book was any good.

About 20k in, I became highly invested in the novel and now it’s an actual project *le sigh*. So I’m now 52k into Trash Novel 1 (spoiler alert, it’s a 7 book series) that will probably never see the publishing light of day under my actual name, because it is 75% pure smut that I am utterly thrilled about, but good heavens if my good ‘ole boy, bro-dominated workplace culture ever found it and attached it to me my work life would become so unbearable I’d probably have to quit my day job.

So. I’m on schedule to finish Trash Novel 1 at the end of the month. I finished Valkyrie’s Call at the end of February. It clocked in at 82.5k and I expect to add another 5-7k in revisions. In all likelihood it’ll clock in around 90k, finished product, which is about what Siren’s Song came in at. (Fun fact, if you’re weird like me and have an obsession with wanting to know what the word count of any book is, Kobo’s website will give you this info for any ebook they have for sale. It’s in the About This Book section. I love it so much).

Anyway, once Trash Novel 1 is finished, April is for deciding whether to dive into Aspect Society #3 or Nyx #3, and I just can’t make up my mind on which way to go. Because the editing process for the Nyx books tends to be longer, I suspect I should write it next, and bump Aspect #3 to later this fall. But then a lot of me also feels obligated to wrap up the Aspect trilogy because that series launched first.

That decision will probably be made as soon as I pick one, start writing, and immediately decide I wished I’d gone with the other one. This is how most of my life decisions get made.

And that’s a wrap, for March. I hope y’all are better at having fun than I am (like, seriously, seriously better). Drop a comment and tell me what you do for fun. I’m not going to lie and say I’ll do any of them (because, obvi, the anxiety of not working), but I will totally read them and envision strong feelings of fun and happiness. Maybe my characters will vicariously have fun for me with these activities you mention.

Take care out there.

First off, let’s talk about success. No, I’m not about to give you a motivational speech on the true definition of success. I mean, if I was good at motivational speeches, sure, I would definitely consider it, but I’m not. When I say let’s talk about success, what I mean is that working during February was like that scene in the first episode of Alias where Sydney has her teeth pulled out as a torture method. Scene briefly reprised to fit the current situation:

Me, Talking to My Works-in-Progress: “I’m your worst enemy. I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

My Works-in-Progress, Cool and Assessing: “That’s not exactly true. You have your sanity.”

It was a rough month and I have no idea why, so I’m starting off with what I accomplished. In UBER EXCITING NEWS, I got the final edit of the first Nyx novel, Guardian of Chaos, finished, AND I got the first cover draft in. Which means Nyx Fortuna will be hitting the shelves in a couple months, as soon as I finish getting the bonus content worked out and I COULD NOT BE MORE EXCITED. The Nyx books are truly the series of my heart, and I can’t wait for you to meet her.

I also got the final self-edit of the second Nyx book, Guardian of Shadows, off to the content editor. I stalled up until the last minute on sending it off, because the creeping it’s-not-good-enough fear wouldn’t let go of me. My content editor really liked the first Nyx book, and she is an author I truly admire, which naturally means I’m terrified I forgot how to write and she will hate the second book and I will have disappointed Nyx’s first reader.

All of which is to say, if you write books or engage in other creative endeavors and have not yet gone through the nausea-inducing, anxiety-riddled, adrenaline-fueled, paralyzing crucible of a rollercoaster ride that is putting your work out into the world and asking people to pay money for it. . . Well, I’m not going to tell you to NOT do it, because I would still do it over again, but maybe have someone around who doesn’t mind constantly reassuring you of your own self-worth. For the job, I highly recommend SO’s, best friends, horses, cats and dogs, or that alternate version of yourself that lives in the back of your mind. Possibly all of the aforementioned.

On the less successful side of things, I have not yet finished the first draft of Valkyrie’s Call. As of this post, I am at 69k words (it’s projected finished at 85k) and the climactic scene is kicking my ass. I have no idea why. I’ve had this scene in my head since I first started writing the book. I was eager to get to it. But four days in a row I opened Scrivener, stared at it for an hour, during which I maybe wrote one sentence, and gave up and went to do something productive. I had really, really wanted to finish the book before this blog post went out, and was refusing to admit defeat, which is why the post is later than usual for the month. I finally admitted defeated, so here I am.

Naturally, since I’m having so much trouble with Valkyrie’s Call, Meredith’s book, Truthfinder’s Promise, saw fit to info-dump its entire plot-line into my head. Prior to this, I really had no idea what Meredith’s book was about. I am not an outline writer by nature, so the fact hadn’t bothered me. I knew what Meredith was about, and I knew the rest would come to me in time. Apparently, in time meant the story flaunting itself enticingly before me while I struggle to get Valkyrie to annihilate someone in an end-battle scene. I mean, really, who would have thought writing Valkyrie annihilating people would be difficult?

The secret New Shiny project is also coming along apace, up to 30K now, though I dropped it for a week or so because I was trying to force myself to finish Valkyrie’s Call. It’s still a side project though, so everything else takes precedence over it. Everything else being, once VC is finished, it’s time to write the third Nyx book, and then Truthfinder’s Promise.

All in all, nothing too terribly exciting going on here in writer life, just the ordinary sexy of the daily grind. I promise a cover reveal of Guardian of Chaos once I get the final edited version back. I love love love love LOVE it, and hope you will too. Take care of yourselves out there.