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Monday, February 13, 2012

Musings From a Very Busy Me

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men... My intentions regarding my writing were excellent when I began book 4, but it has quickly become clear to me that there is no way I can keep up the pace I set for myself on a daily basis with the business of life as a full time wife, mother, and teacher to contend with as well (not to mention being pregnant). I also feel the compulsive need to re-read everything I wrote the previous time I sat down to write when I sit down to write some more, and that leads to ongoing revisions and whatnot. That IS important to how I'm structured to write a story, but it definitely eats into my writing time. Anyhow, I'm still confident that I can complete this draft by the manuscript deadline, but I've had to conclude that I can't do it by writing a consistent 3-5 pages every day. What I CAN do is write in spurts, and that's what I've been doing. A little bit here, a lot bit there, and whole days at a time where I write nothing at all. I'm curious to see how this draft turns out since this is so out of the ordinary for how I usually write. I'm trying to stick to my outline and ring composition chart, but the more I feel rushed, the more I tend to deviate from my outline, causing my ring composition chart to need to be revised. What I really need is a writing retreat - a whole weekend where I can get away from everything and sit by myself in a hotel room or something and just let the story flow. This is highly unlikely to happen, however, as my hubs has to work every Saturday, and paying for a babysitter for that length of time makes me shudder. Someway, somehow, I will pull this all together! As to where I'm at, I hit page 63 tonight and got to send the Six back to Alitheia. I'm writing all the meetings and greetings of the characters with the Alitheian characters and trying to make it interesting without being redundant, yet familiar for my readers who will be looking for certain consistent elements. It's all a great adventure for me, writing this story, and as usual I'm trying to follow the advice that a best selling author once told me: "Write what you want to read." I am and I do. I just hope that translates into something that you all want to read, too!