So, I Wrote a Book…

I’m not really sure how to feel about it. At first, euphoria. Holy shit, I did it! I told any and everyone about my accomplishment. I glowed with the joy of having finished a major project. But now it’s been a couple weeks and the novelty of the finished thing has worn off. It still feels awesome when I stop and think about it, but I’m not thinking about it as often.

Which is a good thing, actually. I need to give the book some space to breathe and let my mind get some distance from the characters and places that lived inside my head for over six months.

Let’s talk stats:

Total Word Count: 87,903
Total Time: 27 weeks (just over 6 months)
Average Weekly Word Count: 3,255
# of False Starts: NONE! This book knew where it was going even when I didn’t. It wrote straight through, with only a couple of awkward scenes. Otherwise, it was smooth sailing.

Those numbers look and feel good, but they don’t capture how it felt. Keep in mind that, until April, I was working two jobs, averaging anywhere from 45-52 hours each week. I was tired. Like, mind-numbingly tired. I wrote in the evenings, after my shifts, usually before and after dinner. There wasn’t time for much else, though I didn’t notice it at the time.

Only once I finished the book did I realize just how much it absorbed me. These last few weeks without it have been very… free. There’s time to do just about anything. Clean the entire house? Sure! I’ve got time. The house is much tidier now that there’s time to tend to it. Read all the things? Absolutely! What else would I do with my evening? Play video games? Oh, man! I missed those! (Don’t worry, I’ve made up for lost time with Assassin’s Creed.)

It also made me realize how wonderful my spouse is, because once I stopped working on the book, I understood how little he actually saw me. It was so nice to spend evenings with him again, not just inhaling dinner and vanishing to my office. We can watch movies and television together, or play games together. Or, and this is wild and crazy, maybe even go out for dinner.

What I’m getting at here is that writing this book was a huge time-suck and sacrifice for my marriage and household. There are costs to writing a book, and I didn’t even realize I was paying them until it was done.

That being said, I wouldn’t change any of it. This went by relatively quickly, the book wrote itself and I mean that. When I started I only had a character and a vague concept of the premise of this book. Everything else appeared as needed. Side characters, villains, subplots, all of them born out of necessity, not planning.

The book provided, so long as I was willing and able to write it all down.

So, what now?

Honestly, I don’t really know. I don’t feel very concrete about much of anything at the moment. I think I’m still recuperating from the marathon of writing the novel, because nothing feels particularly exciting or compelling. Nothing is calling to me, begging me to spend time on it. I know I need to take a break from Tavi, ideally the whole summer. I was only going to revise it sooner than that if I received a scholarship for a workshop in July. Since I didn’t, I’ve got time to let the manuscript dribble out of my brain. I’m tentatively planning to begin revisions in September. In a perfect world I’d have the manuscript ready to query by the New Year.

I don’t know about you, but my world is far from perfect. So, I’ll be happy if the book is “finished” by May 2020.

That means I have three months to work on other stuff. The question is, what other stuff?

• In Great Need of Ghosts (working title)
  • This is the new short story I’m working on. I’d originally hoped to work on a couple stories before moving on to the next big project, but this one is coming together pretty slowly right now. If that changes, great! If not, no big deal. I’m more than willing to take the time it takes.
• Exodus: Descent revision
  • It’s been about nine months since I finished rewriting my very first novel into a totally brand new novella. While I did revise it after completing the rewrite, I knew it wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be. There was something needling at me that I knew was wrong, and halfway through Tavi I figured it out. And since a couple of the potential markets I wanted to send it to are open for submission through the summer, July will be the perfect month to dedicate to fixing the glaring issue and perfecting the rest.
• The Bahn Hexe (working title)
  • Another short story idea that’s been eating at me since we came home from Munich. I don’t think it’s quite ready to be written yet, but it’s close.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got on my radar right now. And for now, it feels like enough. I’ll have more to say about upcoming projects and goals this weekend when I share my Monthly Recap post for May.

Until then, Bloggarts.

 

BZ