For the uninitiated, “WIP” is short for “work in progress.” Used to be, I’d have so many WIPs going on at once that I could barely keep up with them all. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to keep my brain focused on one thing at a time; I’ve found that, when working on my editing work for clients, I complete things faster when I focus in on one thing at a time, and I’ve been trying to utilize that mindset in my writing work, too. As a side effect, I do find myself writing faster and writing more when I’m wholeheartedly focused on that single book and it alone and not several other things at once. (MULTITASKING IS A LIE. Further thoughts on that in a later blog post!) This, at least, seems to hold true when it comes to the drafting stage of the writing process.
I’ve been primarily working my way through drafting and rewriting Reapers (The Unnaturals Book 4) lately, trying to get it done in time to have it released in December in time for Christmas, as I planned. I’ve reached the 60,000-word mark, and honestly, I recently started to feel myself flagging. It’s not that I was losing interest in the story–not by a long shot. It’s just there was a lot of ground to cover in this book, and I was concerned I wasn’t going to do the story idea I’ve had in play for it justice.
But then I had two things happen that sort of re-motivated me recently and got me rethinking not just the book but the series overall.
The first thing was the realization that I was trying to stuff too much into this one book. I ended up sitting down recently and rethinking and replotting out the entire series, which is what has expanded the series into nine books instead of the original five I’d planned. (Believe me, there’s more than enough story there for this.)
The second thing was a really nice chat I had yesterday with a reader that made me realize I’m really overthinking everything and just need to relax and enjoy the ride. I know what needs to happen, I know what’s GOING to happen, and it’s just a matter of putting the words on the page.
So that’s the status of my WIP. And yes, even with all these overhauls and such, we’re still on track for a December release!