July Update: Foundation work on book two (and beyond)

Here we are. July is drawing to a close, and I'm actually doing a blog post before it does. I would have liked to wait a couple more days, but I know myself. If I wait, I will forget.

So, it's been a very busy month for me, writing wise. I mean, I haven't worked a great number of days, but I have spent more than 15 hours working through the rest of MystWatch book 2 this month. I finally finished my read-through.

That's the good news. The other good news is, there are a lot of really great scenes, in this book. But, there's bad news. Jack was right when he beta read for me. Well, it's not bad that he was right. It's bad that I ignored what he said and didn't fix things. Now, I have to fix those things. And there are a lot of things. An almost 10k word document of notes on things I want to fix. Luckily, a lot of those words are brainstorms on how to fix stuff, and also things I like. Regardless, I have my work cut out for me.

But, I'm ready and willing to do the work. I'm deeply immersed in the world. I have a lot of ideas on how to make this book better. A lot of that is helped out by the fact that I've also finished writing book 3. I can use that to inform some of the things that need to happen (or are left out) in this book. Some of those things are going to require a lot of rewriting, and some of those things only a few sentences here and there. I'm looking at doing a lot of cutting, too. One chapter entirely is heading for the cutting room floor. The book was around 123k when I went into this edit. It's up to almost 125k now, and I haven't even begun the bigger edits. I'm hoping to keep it around 125k, so once I finish this developmental edit, I may have to do some intensive surgery at the language level.

I'm really proud of myself for working so hard this month. Rachel and I have set up a loose writing schedule, where we aim for Tuesdays and Thursdays and one weekend day. The sessions can be an hour or two hours or three hours, depending on the day and how we feel. We've canceled several of them, but also met several times. It's helped us both keep accountable and make progress. It's so laid back and chill, with her. We say hello, we state what we're working on, then settle in for 20 or 30 minutes. And then we check back in, unless we're on a roll. If we can keep that up, we'll both be in good shape.

Of course, I do sometimes write outside of our meetings. And I think someday she will, too. We're setting up a foundation, right now. We've both had our writing homes obliterated by disaster, so we're both starting from the ground up again. Luckily, we're experienced builders. We just have to learn to trust ourselves again, trust that we know what we're doing.

I am a much better writer, now, than I was when I wrote (and edited) this book. The fixes are necessary. There was a time I thought about just doing a copy edit and leaving it, but I can make this book so much better. And I want to. I'm excited to. Which is an awesome feeling. I haven't been excited to write and edit in awhile. Leave it to MystWatch. It always gets me excited.

My plan right now, since I've written up some notes on a couple of plot fixes, is to do another quick read of this book, making notes of what happens in each chapter. I found I had a hard time figuring out where to insert the new plot elements because my old book outline is out of date. So, going through, writing up chapter synopses, and then inserting editing notes for each chapter is what I'm going to work on for the next few days. That will likely bleed into next month. I'm assuming it'll take at least a week to get through this entire thing again. That said, I'm slow at work this week, so I can sneak in some of this work on work time.

Basically, I'm making up what I call an editing treatment. I've already done that for this book once or twice before, but clearly it needs it again. I was tempted to do it for book 1 again, but at this point, I don't think I'm going to do much more editing on that book. Heh. Famous last works.

At any rate. I'm going to keep working on this book until I get sick of it or feel too much fatigue to move on. That could totally happen after my summary pass. I hope not. I'm starting to feel short on months. It's August, in a few days. I'm starting to worry I may not have book 3 ready by Christmas. I have four months and change. Some of that will be time that Rachel is reading the books. At least when I reach that point, I can start to explore other projects.

Other projects are beginning to tantalize me. I've been in the mood to write new fiction for about a month now. I will probably switch to writing brain when I reach capacity on work for book 2. Not sure what I will work on, first, but I admit to being very tempted to dip my toe back into Druid Wars, even after swearing it off last month. I showed Rachel the cover I've been coveting for the first Druid Wars book, and she loves it. So, I told myself, if I can get a good start on book 2, I may allow myself to drop the $100 on it. I've been in love with it for years, and it still hasn't sold. It must be mine.

And that's pretty much it for me. July was mostly work on book 2 of MystWatch. My goal for August is to do the editing treatment and get started on fixes. I hope to keep meeting Rachel online as often as we can, and maybe even keep doing a day here and there on my own. And those times I get to feeling overwhelmed, I'll just remember what Jack told me. One step at a time. Baby steps are still steps, as they say.

One step at a time. One foot in front of the other. I'm going to get through this. One way or another.