There it is. I admit it. I have no excuse to offer other than this--since typing "The End" on the final page of my novel in mid-June, I basically turned my back on my baby for a while. Truth be told, I turned my back on all things writing for the rest of the summer. My poor, fledgling blog was no exception. So to my thousands and thousands of disappointed readers out there (cough) I apologize.
What can I say. Mommy needed a break.
Writing has taken up so much of my life for such a long time, I'd forgotten what it was like not to have a book to write. And it's been WONDERFUL.
Ok, sometimes it's been hard. I've been used to stepping into the lives of my characters nearly every day.
I think about them all the time, the same way you might think about a dear friend you've lost touch with.
And I miss them. Alot.
Ideas for Book 2 pop into my head nearly every day, but I simply jot them down in my notepad without expanding on them, no matter how sorely I am tempted. The truth of the matter is, I'm just not ready to commit to starting another book--one that, no doubt, will consume me every bit as much as this one has.
For Pete's sake, I still have edits to do and query letters to polish and decisions to make about what the next move is with this one! The thought of starting the entire process over is terrifying.
I envy those writers out there who churn out books in a matter of weeks (Amanda Hocking states on her blog that she wrote her first vampire novel in FIFTEEN DAYS. Switched, the first book in her popular Trylle Trilogy, was written in ONE WEEK.) I admire Amanda enormously for what she has accomplished as a self published author. While some of her books are badly in need of more thorough editing, for the most part they are entertaining and well-written, especially considering the time it took to write them.
So I ask myself, is it smart for me to agonize over every step in this process the way I do? Is there a point where you have to say "to hell with what the experts say--I'm just gonna take a week's vacation from work and write this damn thing and throw it up on Kindle and see what happens!" It goes without saying, there's never been a better time for self-published writers than RIGHT NOW. It is tempting to skip the whole query--wait--get rejected--cry pathetically--query again--cycle that is the story of nearly every writer out there, at least at some point in their career. What are your thoughts? What has your own experience been?
A Writer's Ruminations from Green Thirteen
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