Or sense. I could use some more of that too. Anyway, I’m a little late in posting this month – sorry about that! I’ve been crawling in and out of bed with bronchitis the last few days and didn’t process what day of the month is was until a few minutes ago. Sigh.
First of all, I want to congratulate Love Bytes on their two year Anniversary! Wow. Seriously? The time goes by so fast. Which is something I thought I’d talk about. I posted at the New Year that I’d quit my job to write full time. Yay me, right? Hmmm. I have no idea how I’m even still alive after writing while working another job for the past few years . I was either really, really dedicated or really, really stupid. I’m still working that out in my head.
I have folders on my computer – as I’m sure most authors do – that have the titles of books and or series I plan to write. The proverbial Plot Bunnies (this is as close to an Easter reference as I could generate) within those folders comprise either absolutely nothing (I have quite a few of those), a vague outline, a slightly less vague outline, a list of character names and their attributes or 50K words I have no idea whether I should keep or not. Overall though, I have more ideas at this moment than I will ever have time to write.
Now, some of those ideas suck so bad, no one should ever write them, but the most important ones are those I’ve actually made promises regarding. I have a short story that I never intended to go beyond the 20K mark, and I gave the couple what I thought was a strong HFN. But I had so much feedback from people wanting more, I promised I’d expand it. I also opened my big mouth and told my publisher I would too.
One series I’m in the middle of was supposed to end after three books. I’m in edits on the fourth and have four more hashed out because of reader requests for individual side character’s stories. One character I added in knowing I wanted their story – so I blame myself for that. However, another pair was brought in as an established couple in the first book merely as a support system for the MC’s, but their’s has become the most requested story – which would then have to be a prequel.
None of this is bad and I’m not complaining in the slightest. As a matter of fact, I doubted I’d ever see the day when anyone cared whether a character I wrote in a book had their own story or not in another book. I’m beyond grateful even if I am perplexed. I always have to switch it in my head and relate it to how I feel when I’m reading a series and want to know if so and so will get their own book. Then I can say to myself, ‘oh, okay, now I get it’.
So if I go back to that first week after I’d quit my job to where I’d cracked my knuckles, stretched, grabbed my cup of coffee and thought, ‘Wow. Finally I get to write all those stories I haven’t had time for’. *choke* *gasp* I wish. Admittedly, I did get kicked in the head pretty hard with a strong dose of Real Life this past month, but still, I have way more going on than I have time to accomplish.
But that doesn’t excuse the rest of my author friends who have follow-ups they’ve promised me they’d write. To you I say, ‘Write faster!”.