Recently some of my favorite authors have been more honest and open with their lives and writing process, and I thought it was time to be genuine.
I have so much gratitude for the writing and author community. I’m so grateful to be a part of it. The authors are so warm and welcoming to newbies. The authors that I have met have been supportive and kind. It makes me want to be that way for others coming behind me in the community.
I also have so much gratitude for my Alpha readers. The three authors that read my work before anyone else are essential to my process. Their brutal honesty is painful at times, but they are singlehandedly aiding me in becoming a better writer every day. My books are better for it. I am better for it. My three Alpha readers are invaluable to my process.
Recently I had gotten into the trap of comparison. There are authors in my genre who write an insane and impressive 10k words a day. When looking at numbers like these, it’s easy to feel inadequate. My 3k words a day look like nothing compared to those numbers but here’s the thing comparison is pointless. Our circumstances are vastly different. They don’t have my life and circumstances, and I don’t have theirs. I can only focus on myself and my process and work at becoming the best version of myself.
I should find joy in my process. I’m proud when I get in my 3k word days, which means my stories are being told. I’m excited to share them all with you. I have more than 30+ books planned over my career. I am in this for the long haul, and I honor the 3 hours a day that I have to write. Those three hours is sacred time. Time without my family home. Time uninterrupted. Time without clients in my other business. Three hours of sacred storytelling and world-building. I need to write in the morning and edit in the evening, and I feel blessed when I can do both things in one day.
There is so much to learn in this business. Writing a book is so much more complicated than reading one. Bleeding words onto the page takes mental fortitude, and my creative energy is not an endless well.
Yesterday I rewrote the last three chapters of my first book. Dramatically changing the outcome and thus changing the entire 20 book series, but here’s the thing it was necessary and worth it. The book is so much better for it. I felt emotionally hungover and spent after ending the book for the second time. Still, I am learning that this is part of my process. If I don’t feel drained at the end, then the end is just not right.
Last week I also picked up a shelved and dead manuscript. I shelved it thinking I would never touch it again, but I was wrong. My original, the first book ever, was awful. It needed a ton of work, and I knew in my heart that although I needed to write it to learn how to write, the story just wasn’t good enough. So I wrote it out of the series plan. I made the second book, book one, and the original no longer had a place in the series.
The characters in that original book are some of my favorites. They were my firsts for everything, and they held a special place in my soul. So with book one done, I decided to gut the original book, replot it, polish the beloved characters, take the golden pieces of the story, and rewrite the entire book, making it a novella. The new novella now has an important place in the world. My Alpha readers wanted to learn more about my characters that still had a guest appearance in book one. So now I am telling their revamped and revised story, and the novella will be my freebie when you subscribe to my list.
Remain open always. That’s where the magic happens. As a creative who shares stories, remaining open is the secret sauce to spinning a web of creativity.
