Usually, I start each day with a little warmup writing before working on my current book. I come here to share something I care about and after posting, maybe get a little exercise in before hitting the big project (which is currently a YA novel).
But yesterday I flipped the order around and dove right into the manuscript. This typically happens once I’ve gotten into a rhythm, writing each day. If I’ve gone on vacation, or my day job has interrupted the flow of things too much? Forget it. I need to come back here to anchor myself—and sometimes—dust myself off. But once I get a consistent writing program going, it gets easier to find creativity in everything I’m looking at. Ironic, isn’t it? That structure is freeing?
This week I finally got back to a point where as I finish writing for the day, the next words for my book keep bouncing around in my mind, straight through to the next morning. So, when I woke up yesterday, I needed to get right to it. It was about time, too. I’m almost done writing the first draft and I’m excited to see how the ending plays out. That’s right. Even though I know what the ending is going to be, I can’t wait to see how it actually goes down!
Next Steps
The current plan is to finish the first draft by the end of April, revise it over the course of May, and then send it out to literary agents at the end of May. If they take it, great. If they don’t, I’ll self-publish. I’ll probably give it six months and if I don’t hear anything back, BOOM. Self-publish. All the while, I’ll be working on the next book.
Writing is not an easy journey. It probably has the worst financial return for hours worked of any profession you could choose. Hopefully the day comes when you hit a tipping point where people discover your work, enjoy it, and a windfall comes, but the reality is, it probably won’t. Fortunately, that’s never been a motivating factor for me—I just want people to read what I put out and hopefully get something useful out of it. With the tools now available for writers, there’s no reason why readers can’t find your words, so I just need to put one word in front of the other and keep going, right? And before you know it, the first draft becomes the second, and then the second becomes the final…