I’ve been writing — and shoveling snow, and buying a house, and teaching a class and generally treading water as efficiently as I can.
The writing has been some of the most fun. If you were here in January -or pretty much any time last year — you know that I was working on Nick and Edie. And even when I finished Nick and Edie I had a couple of weeks of breathing space before they came winging back for revisions.
The revisions weren’t supposed to be much. They were about what one expects. Nothing major like the time I had to rethink a whole book.
But when I got into them, I realized I wanted to rethink this whole book. So I did. And it took a while. And it kept me from working on the next book, which already had a due date.
So mid-January I decided that I needed, while I was finishing the final Nick and Edie, to get a jump-start on the new book about Yiannis Savas, the youngest Savas brother (to Tallie, Elias, Demetrios and George). So I signed up to do April Kihlstrom’s wonderful “Book in a Week” course online.
It was the best move I ever made.
While Nick and Edie wound to a close, I started thinking about Yiannis and Cat (Catriona actually). And doing the exercises and thinking about them as I made my way through April’s course (which is 5 weeks long, though only one week is intensively writing) was a great way to get a jump on what I needed in the story.
When I started that first week I knew I had Yiannis as a hero — and that was all I knew. By the time I started writing 3 weeks later I had a pretty good grasp of the story. So I wrote. And wrote. And wrote. I didn’t get a whole book. I got about half a book. But I got a very good notion of what the story was about — and I am now putting the rest of it on the computer screen.
April said that writing so quickly freed her up to write things she might not have tried if she’d been working slowly, carving her book out of granite to get everything right. Since obviously I needed a complete re-think of Nick and Edie, taking a headlong dash at Yiannis and Cat seemed like a good idea. And it was.
Now if I could just get this house closed and the class prepared, I could focus on the last half of Yiannis and Cat. At least the snow is gone. It’s almost time to mow the grass!
How have you been? Well, I hope. Please comment and tell me what’s new with you.
I hope to turn up here more regularly now that things seem to be smoothing out. And you will note that I am not writing this on April Fool’s Day, so I’m not joking!
I ummed and ahhed over April’s class but it overlapped with one I’m already doing so I decided to wait until next time. Now I wish I hadn’t lol! You’ve got me all excited about it again
I haven’t been doing anything exciting so I’ll live vicariously through you. How’s the new house going? Now THAT’S exciting! Honestly, since I’ve never seen snow I’d probably get a thrill out of shoveling it too lol!
Well you have been busy, Anne. Love the sound of that class – I need to get out of the granite thing myself.
Glad the snow has gone, good luck with the house, and cutting the grass. Mine had its first trim last week, although since it’s mostly moss, it didn’t make a lot of difference.
Lacey, Wait until May and I’ll take it with you. I want to do it again as I found the structure useful and it really gave me a nice jump-start on my book. Hope to have it well out of here by mid-May when, I believe, April is thinking about doing another one. That one would get me ahead of the game as that book isn’t due until end of September.
Liz, I am such a ‘granite-chipping’ writer. I totally know where you are coming from. But the 100 or so pages I got done in April’s ‘week’ really freed me up. I’d recommend it.
The snow may not all be gone yet, but the grass is turning green. If some snow does reappear, it won’t last, which is the best kind. HATE those early December snowfalls because you know they are going to be dirty grey ice and still there in February.