I’m about to begin a cooling off period and it’s maddening! (This morning’s snow is appropriate, eh?)
Battle Scars (pt. 3) went to my beta readers on Saturday. The writer in me wants to dive back into chapter 1 and start revisions. The writer in me also knows that it’s wise to set aside a finished manuscript for a few weeks. Let it simmer. *sigh*
But my writers group has yet to hear pt. 3. I’ll be dishing that up to them over the next few weeks. Can I resist tinkering with the story and just soak in their critiques?
There’s a certain rhythm that I fell into these last 2 years. Writing (and revising) 5-6 days a week for 2+ hours a day has been wonderful. When I struggled to put words down, or thought there was just a puddle of goo on the screen, I kept going. It was thrilling to finish the first draft of Keeping the Family Peace (KtFP) in 2011. I wrote the 2nd half of that novel in 1 year; it had taken me 2 years to write the 1st half. And while I revised that story in 2012, I penned the first words of Battle Scars. I hit a new high, writing more new words in one year than I’ve ever written – 72,000+.
Now what? What do I do while I let Battle Scars simmer? I could:
- re-read the science fiction story I wrote years ago. For the last 2 years, I’ve been promising to resurrect Echoes of the Storm and work on revisions
- work on my income tax return
- read up on GoodReads marketing & promotion ideas for authors to spread the word about KtFP
- plot out a sequel to KtFP, which has been suggested by my niece and by friend Mary B. – hm… Does professor of medieval history Nick Peace get calls from a strange author trying to write a Third Crusade novel?
- plot out the sequel to Battle Scars because it is really calling for one…
Let me have another cup of coffee, watch the snow fall, and think this one over. Stay warm and have a good day, gentle readers.
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