The good news is I finished typing up the rough draft of book two in the Magic Catalyst Chronicles yesterday.
The bad news is that Samil said something at the end of book one that deviated from my original draft, which has thrown a monkey wrench into the timeline for book two. Consequently, I have some major rewrites to tackle now to get us back on track.
I don’t know if other writers have these types of issues. When I started the series, I had only a vague idea of who the characters were. But the more I wrote about them, the more they came to life. Most of the character interactions and flashbacks were inspired and written on the fly, so I quite literally got to know the other characters at the same time Emily did.
Add to that the fact that I don’t write in a linear fashion, instead I skip around in the books based on where the inspiration leads me. Which unfortunately means this isn’t the first time I’ve had to go back and change things up to ensure continuity in the story. For the over all series the changes I’m working on are definitely an improvement, but in the moment, they are causing my brain to short circuit.
So in order to make it through typing up my rough draft without getting lost in the weeds, I literally had to shut down my brain. I was able to achieve this by listening to reality shows on Bravo while I typed. So in addition to typing the first 24,000 words of book two, I am now completely caught up on Summer House and The Real House Wives of: Beverly Hills, Potomac, and New York. Because my brain was turned off, instead of making changes as I went, I ended up making a To Do list of 30 plus changes, additions, and completely new chapters that still need to be written.
Now once I finish adding extra chapters and making the modifications to the existing ones, book two’s total word count should end up in the same range as book one. Somewhere in the 33,000 to 38,000 word range. And I still feel good about my personal commitment to have it ready for a June release.
Now this was not the blog I originally intended to write. I actually had a totally different topic in mind when I started. But the challenges I’ve been working around these last 11 days have clearly taken over my thoughts, and I can’t seem to talk about anything else.
All this extra angst because Samil changing the way he asked Emily a question at the end of book one . And while I’m sure I’ll thank him in the long run, I’d like to send him to the corner or kick him in the shins right now. I haven’t quite decided which.
Thinking Out Loud 