So, small win for this week… or you know what, let’s call it a BIG win… I finished the latest round of edits on my novel The Cube and sent the whole book back to my editor on Monday. Draft FIVE is now complete!!! Some edits were easy-peasy and I just flew right through them. Some of the edits were tricky, but ended up well. Some I’m still not sure about (like I cut the word count of the last few chapters down by about half… eek!). But it feels good to be one step closer to the finish line. If she likes what she sees, then we’re onto proofreading. If that goes all according to plan, then I’m on track for my goal to start querying agents in March. That will be nerve-racking… and surely a blog topic for another day.
What is TRULY SCARY now is that in addition to my book series, Amache’s America on channillo.com, I’m also starting to write my next book. Yes, that’s right. The Cube is coming to an end and there’s no rest for the wicked. Well, truth be told. I’m actually starting on my next TWO books because I have a sequel in mind for The Cube and I’m also itching to get started on writing The Samurai Prophecy. In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about how ideas are alive and come to you and can just as easily leave you. She writes, “If inspiration is allowed to unexpectedly enter you, it is also allowed to unexpectedly exit you.” That resonates so true and scares the crap out of me because I’ve had the idea for The Samurai Prophecy for close to a year now and I’m petrified it will leave me. Don’t leave me, I want to write you! But really, why am I doing this to myself? Why not just make sure The Cube gets out there and then start the next book? Well, truth be told, every author I have spoken to has told me the same thing: you have to KEEP WRITING. Why? Well… if… no WHEN (claiming it!)… The Cube is published it could take 1-3 years before its on bookshelves. Plus, writers are more attractive to publishers if they’re not a one trick pony. The scariest bit is that some writers have told me that their first books never get picked up but that their second or third books do. EEEEEEK. I am determined to be an author, so I better get crackin’. And, of course, there’s just the added bonus of writers are born to write. So, write I will. I will admit that I have this fear that if I don’t manically focus on one book at a time, somehow the quality of all the books I’m working on will go down, but I think that is just a fear. I also do feel a bit like a crazy person, holding all of these fictional worlds and people in my head. But I’ve decided that type of crazy is the best crazy possible. I’m actually usually at my best when I have a bunch of different things to bounce in between, so this is a pretty fun time for me. I just hope one day I will look back at these early blog posts with a warm-fuzzy sense of nostalgia - for the time I was writing multiple books for no one but myself - because baby, I was born to do it.
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