How I Had to Postpone the Novel. Again.

My goal this year is to finish for the final time the historical romance with which I started my career as a novelist.  That sounds either remarkably grandiose or deliberately obscure – depending upon how well you know me – but I assure you it’s neither.  It’s merely the truth.When I began writing in 1997, I started off with a “novel idea” of having the hero and heroine get married and have a baby before there was actually a real relationship between them.  Those of you who have been following me over the last year here at My Vamp Fiction know I’m a rebel.  Unconventional. Likely entirely too full of myself.  So I wrote this novel of 100,000 words in thirty days. Just to see if I could, you know?  If you have participated in NaNoWriMo, you’ll perhaps understand the drive to just find out if you’ve got it in you.

Turns out, I did.  At least, I thought so.

But, after a professional editor ripped the first few chapters into bleeding pieces – which was where I developed my infamous rhinoceros hide – I had to put that manuscript away.  I wrote five more full length novels in the next eleven months. I did.  But I didn’t revisit the title that was, then, Amberly’s Heir.

A Goal Deferred

I reworked the novel to a degree, following the suggestions I received from the editor.  This was, after all, years after my initial sob-fest upon reading his critique.  I then asked my husband to do something unusual:  I asked him to read my manuscript.

He’s a former Marine. He doesn’t read romance novels, even when his wife writes them.  Even when his wife ran an e-Book site.  Even when his wife was in dialogue with different editors.  Still, since I had made this request, he read it.

“It’s boring for about the first half,” he informed me seriously. “And then it picks up.”

I took that with a nod. “So I should maybe start it where he comes home?”

He shrugged and handed over the enormous blue binder in which the manuscript resided. “Yeah. I mean, that’s where it gets good.” (My husband is not the best literary critic, but he does know how to be clear when he communicates.)

I realized he was right. Starting a novel in the middle of a compelling action sequence is a good idea.  I took the book apart and started over, beginning with the battle sequence where my hero is injured.  This was Version Two.

I didn’t like it, either. I had a lot more to learn about writing.  I fiddled with it off and on for a few years. My old writers’ group. The Writers’ Round Table of Phoenix, even critiqued a few chapters of it, back in the day.

I didn’t finish.

Then, in 2011, I gave myself a new goal: I was going to finish that book, darn it!  I redesigned the outline, keeping the central conflicts and characters, but I added new ways of communicating these the conflicts and themes. I tightened up the storyline, did further research into the time period, and was really happy with this latest edition.

Before I could do much with it, my husband’s company shut down and he was laid off and my life was rather overturned. These things happen.

A Goal Deferred Again

I penned the first lines to Amberly’s Heir in December of 1997.  Eons later, I laid out my writing plan to finish the latest recreation of this novel: In the Name of Duty.  I was going strong in chapter ten, too, when I got a fabulous invitation to contribute to an anthology.  I didn’t have to submit a story in advance – the editor came to me.

How cool is that?

The collection is called Sassy Singularity and it will be released in February. It’s supposed to be a collection of stories about happily single woman at or around Valentine’s Day.

I think.

I mean, that’s what I wrote my story about, anyway.

The week I was supposed to be writing that short story should have been a breeze. But it wasn’t. Like any writer, I don’t write from a vacuum; I have a real life that swirls around me. Sometime, this life is blissful, filled with rainbows and puppies and fresh floral scents. Sometimes, it’s filled with sharp edges, bad head-colds and frigid temperatures.  Oh, and children.  These latter conditions are not ideal to the creation of a singularly sassy heroine.

However, I managed to finish by deadline.  Whew.

Which means that I will once again set my historical novel in front of me.  Because, really, I would like to finish it this year. Ideally before I get any older. You know, officially.

As a writer, I get to set my own work hours…as long as I fulfill my other important obligations.

As a writer, I am able to work in my pajamas.  So long as I’m writing at home, anyway.

As a writer, I am able to express myself with the convenience of a delete key, not having to present my words until I am satisfied they are the best I have.

And as a writer, I can often judge how productive my day has been, not by the kitchen (which as most of you will acknowledge, can be cleaned multiple times and still look like a disaster at the end of the day), but by how worn out my hands feel when I go to bed.

Today, my right hand is worn out. Must mean it’s been a good day.  And it’s barely lunchtime.

Time to dig out that outline.  Again.  I really should get started right away; one never knows when something will happen to interrupt!

See you in a few weeks,
Sandi