Last Friday I wrote how difficult my writing was going because of the migraine. It wasn't easy, but I didn't give up and eventually fought through it. Yet I realized even with my head pounding, that the headache wasn't the only reason I was having difficulties.
As you may know, I've been working on the sequel to my Christmas dragon story, Dragon Games: Snip! Snap! Dragon! You met Lucina and Ryuu in that book, and I'd been looking forward to telling their story.
But Dragon Games II: Truth or Dragon was NOT an easy book to write. I made several mistakes going in that seemed to twist the writing of it into something that almost stopped me in my tracks.
The first mistake was not following my gut and letting the publisher know I couldn't do an April 2016 release. Since we were moving to South America from the end of December to the middle of February, I had absolutely no time to write, so that meant a short window to get the book completed.
Usually, that wouldn't be a problem, I can toss out 50k in just a couple weeks easy if I put my mind to it. But this time, my mind just wouldn't cooperate.
Which leads me to mistake number two. I didn't listen to my characters.
Now, it wasn't all my fault. I usually do listen. I most often do what I sense they want, and the book flows quite easily. Even when I'm working on a previous world I've created, it's not hard to fit the pieces together.
But this time, for reasons I'm still not really sure of, I pushed aside that glimmer of knowledge of what I was supposed to do and wrote something totally different. And BOY DID THEY LET ME KNOW HOW WRONG THAT WAS!!!!
Seriously, they did everything but hold their breath and stomp their feet. *sigh* I had at least half the book done and while parts of it were really good, it was disjointed and there were things that didn't make sense. And honestly? I flat out just didn't like it.
It was about that time that I got my migraine. Whether it was because of the stress of a deadline looming or the way the characters were fighting me, I don't know. But it added time I didn't have to the already painful process.
So, what did I do?
I gave in. I did what my instincts had told me to do in the first place, used the bits and pieces I really liked in the mix and pretty much started over. And low and behold, it finally worked. I not only got the book finished, I enjoyed writing again, and I absolutely love what I ended up with.
And my characters smiled.
So now I have my book done! Yay!!!! I'm waiting on edits and the final book cover, and then I'll be ready for publication in mid April. I'll take some time off to stir the pot for the next story and then I'll do it all over again.
But this time I'll listen to those voices in my head. After all, they are pretty smart!!!
Until next time!
1 comment:
Most of the time the voices in our heads are good ones! Glad you got things worked out. Your Dragon series is next on my list, so I may wait till April to get the first two then :)
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