It’s been a few weeks. And if you don’t follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you have no idea where I went. I promise I had good reason for disappearing. In summary, I was doing a deep dive into my three main projects. And here are the results:
- Drawn Into Love: I know, I know – you’d think I finished this ages ago, since I’ve already been sending it out and getting rejections, right? But every time I heard “plotting” advice, even though I fully acknowledge I am not a plotter, I had minor panic attacks, thinking my book wasn’t good enough. So, I took some time and laid out my book scene by scene to make sure everything was necessary, and then created a one sentence summary, 50-word summary, 100-word summary, one paragraph summary, and edited my one-page synopsis. The idea being, I now understand myself what the key points in my book are, and finally have an elevator speech ready and can copy paste as much as possible when sending out queries.
- Andrea’s story: I really need to come up with a title for this. But, a companion to Drawn Into Love, I finished the full first draft! That’s right, 72,403 words and I have a rough draft. Now I am going to set it aside until January to let it breath and then begin my normal rigorous edits and research – especially since I placed most of it in Paris…where I’ve never been in my life. Why do I do this to myself?
- A Picture of the Past: Remember that trip I took in June? Well, the past few weeks, I’ve read about a dozen research books to supplement my knowledge of the trail. In the next couple weeks, I intend to read a few more, then, using that additional knowledge, go through the notes I took for my research trip and finally begin implementing everything into my book as I bring it from a very, very rough draft with missing pieces to a full rough draft complete with the appropriate research.
So, you see, I’ve been extremely productive, and was virtually ignoring social media (no pun intended–though maybe it should have been) to enable me to dive deep without worrying.
So that’s this week’s update – or – the last few weeks? Anyway, hope research and writing is going well for all of you – and especially you plotters as you prep for National Novel Writing Month!
Forest Idylls 
Wow! What a super productive time! And oooh, Paris! ❤️🤩
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I love your honesty!! Sometimes the “rules of writing” can be so frustrating. I used to let poetry just fill notebook pages as it filled my mind. But now that I’m teaching literature and writing to my 4th graders, I see every fence and rule I am probably breaking and it is really getting in the way of letting go and just getting something on the page! Do I dive in and learn all there is to know? Will it grow me? Or will it shut me in a box of what not to do? What about the writers of old who never were never trained in the writing strategies that apparently must be so carefully obeyed now. It is THEIR writing that has lived on, and perhaps their writing these strategies were even built upon. But they had the greater privilege in my way of thinking. The freedom to write, unhampered by all the “dos and do nots”.
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I know, right?? I find it all so irritating!
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