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hey, it turns out this is hard work!
Okay, so, an update on my novel! Right, the one I was going to have finished six months ago. You are correct, sir, that's the one.
The good news is, I'm a chapter and a half from finished. Yay! The bad news is, as Mary put it, "Haven't you been a chapter and a half from the end for months?" Which, NO, NOT EXACTLY, I was totally *two* chapters from the end for most of that time. And let me tell you why it's taking me so much longer than I wanted: four reasons!
1. I restructured it at one point, because the format I'd been assuming, which was one book to cover Georgiana's reign and one to cover who becomes Queen after her...was ridiculous, there's just too damn much going on. So in spite of the fact that I don't like trilogies all that much...now it's a trilogy. But of course you can't just end the damn thing early and port a bunch of stuff into the second book, because it has to have a certain sense of structure and containment on its own. Hence I ended up having to rebuild the back half of the book so that the goblin raid on the daycare center, which was originally just a shot of palate-cleansing violence, became the whole narrative and, more importantly, emotional climax of the book. This is perhaps a really stupid choice, because the goblin raid is really part of John's story, and he's still a newer character at this point. Also, it means Malachi won't even show up until the beginning of the second book, which is a wrench, because she's awesome. BUT. There is a lot going on, you guys!
2. THE FKING GOBLIN RAID IS KILLING ME. Seriously, it's *killing* me. It's a battle sequence where I have to keep track of NINE characters on the protagonist side, and only two of them are actually fighters. So it's really not so much a battle as it is a brutally traumatic bar fight, and the disorganization is baked into the premise. Also, writing combat isn't really my wheelhouse to begin with. The whole thing is just excruciating, which is why I've written about half of it over the course of two months.
3. Lorenzo's chapter was also a lot harder than it should've been. Its actual purpose was mainly infodump: "Hey, you know how the bad guy has been creating intrigue behind the scenes and no one can quite figure out what he's up to or why? Here's what he's up to and why!" But even though I obviously knew perfectly well how many layers of paranoia, betrayal, and resentment are operating at once through Lorenzo, it turned out to be a lot harder than I expected to convey them without it being an *obvious* infodump. And he's just a complicated guy, smart and conflicted and fearful, playing out his fated purpose and rebelling against it at the same time. I don't think I could write a chapter from Lorenzo's point of view about ordering pizza without it turning into 11,000 words about his relationship with his mother. That's just the way he thinks about the world. (I am, by the way, fully resigned to the fact that he's going to be everyone's favorite character, because apparently I'm that writer now.)
4. Just, generally I suck at life. The closer I get to being done with this, the more I start freaking out. The downside to spending most of your life hearing "You should write a book! I bet it would be FANTASTIC!" is that you start to feel like you have NO EXCUSE for not delivering a fantastic book. Everyone wants you to! Everyone says you can! Which means, in a way, it's not an option to just try it and see if anyone likes it. I mean, obviously it's an option, but it feels like you'd be disappointing all those people, if it turns out just okay. You'd go from the girl who should totally write a book because it would be fantastic to, "Oh, huh. I guess maybe she shouldn't have, after all. I really thought it would be better!" So, yeah, there's been some high-level anxiety, and some crying instead of writing during my Scheduled Writing Times, and just a level of inner resistance that I didn't anticipate, or rather, underestimated the potency of. So yeah.
But mostly it's the fking goblin raid. Goddammit with that thing.
So. I'm writing now, and I'm not too far from the end, really. I'd like to be done in about two weeks, and then take four weeks or so to edit and figure out the formatting needs and all that, and have it for sale sometime in September. That's my game plan.
The good news is, I'm a chapter and a half from finished. Yay! The bad news is, as Mary put it, "Haven't you been a chapter and a half from the end for months?" Which, NO, NOT EXACTLY, I was totally *two* chapters from the end for most of that time. And let me tell you why it's taking me so much longer than I wanted: four reasons!
1. I restructured it at one point, because the format I'd been assuming, which was one book to cover Georgiana's reign and one to cover who becomes Queen after her...was ridiculous, there's just too damn much going on. So in spite of the fact that I don't like trilogies all that much...now it's a trilogy. But of course you can't just end the damn thing early and port a bunch of stuff into the second book, because it has to have a certain sense of structure and containment on its own. Hence I ended up having to rebuild the back half of the book so that the goblin raid on the daycare center, which was originally just a shot of palate-cleansing violence, became the whole narrative and, more importantly, emotional climax of the book. This is perhaps a really stupid choice, because the goblin raid is really part of John's story, and he's still a newer character at this point. Also, it means Malachi won't even show up until the beginning of the second book, which is a wrench, because she's awesome. BUT. There is a lot going on, you guys!
2. THE FKING GOBLIN RAID IS KILLING ME. Seriously, it's *killing* me. It's a battle sequence where I have to keep track of NINE characters on the protagonist side, and only two of them are actually fighters. So it's really not so much a battle as it is a brutally traumatic bar fight, and the disorganization is baked into the premise. Also, writing combat isn't really my wheelhouse to begin with. The whole thing is just excruciating, which is why I've written about half of it over the course of two months.
3. Lorenzo's chapter was also a lot harder than it should've been. Its actual purpose was mainly infodump: "Hey, you know how the bad guy has been creating intrigue behind the scenes and no one can quite figure out what he's up to or why? Here's what he's up to and why!" But even though I obviously knew perfectly well how many layers of paranoia, betrayal, and resentment are operating at once through Lorenzo, it turned out to be a lot harder than I expected to convey them without it being an *obvious* infodump. And he's just a complicated guy, smart and conflicted and fearful, playing out his fated purpose and rebelling against it at the same time. I don't think I could write a chapter from Lorenzo's point of view about ordering pizza without it turning into 11,000 words about his relationship with his mother. That's just the way he thinks about the world. (I am, by the way, fully resigned to the fact that he's going to be everyone's favorite character, because apparently I'm that writer now.)
4. Just, generally I suck at life. The closer I get to being done with this, the more I start freaking out. The downside to spending most of your life hearing "You should write a book! I bet it would be FANTASTIC!" is that you start to feel like you have NO EXCUSE for not delivering a fantastic book. Everyone wants you to! Everyone says you can! Which means, in a way, it's not an option to just try it and see if anyone likes it. I mean, obviously it's an option, but it feels like you'd be disappointing all those people, if it turns out just okay. You'd go from the girl who should totally write a book because it would be fantastic to, "Oh, huh. I guess maybe she shouldn't have, after all. I really thought it would be better!" So, yeah, there's been some high-level anxiety, and some crying instead of writing during my Scheduled Writing Times, and just a level of inner resistance that I didn't anticipate, or rather, underestimated the potency of. So yeah.
But mostly it's the fking goblin raid. Goddammit with that thing.
So. I'm writing now, and I'm not too far from the end, really. I'd like to be done in about two weeks, and then take four weeks or so to edit and figure out the formatting needs and all that, and have it for sale sometime in September. That's my game plan.
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