I realized today that it has been nearly six months since my last post. Actually, I have known about the ever increasing gap in my posts for some time and that gap has summarily influenced me into extending the gap because of fear for what I would write.
It is not like I have been on vacation on an island in the middle of the Caribbean, although that possibility certainly sounds enticing. I like all of you have been busy with life. The new term which I have heard tossed around is “adulting”. Six months of taking care of business (every day, taking care of business . . .) has left me with much less energy to spend time on the things that I love to do.
This does not mean that I have stopped writing. On the contrary, if you happen across my website or sister Facebook page – Chel and Riley page – you will see that I took a little bit of time this spring to write a new adventure for the kiddie duo and even put on an event in which Chel and Riley acted out (more or less) the first three chapters of the new book. As a reward to those that attended, the children received a copy of the finalized story so they could read how the story ended.
With Chel and Riley safely “Back to School”, I have turned my attention back to book four. I will be frank with you. The excitement I had hoped would come from the release of book three has not manifested itself. This has been a downer and my motivation to continue on has somewhat been dampened. This has caused me to struggle in picking up where I left off in March with book four. With roughly twelve chapters complete and over fifty-five thousand words written, I have spent the last few weeks realigning the book so as to get it back on track.
This book started out out as a project for NaNoWriMo 2016, for which it successfully completed its goal. The problem was during the writing process, I was bouncing all over the story in order to keep on top of the word count. This comes from not having as complete an outline as I had in previous titles. So, I went back to the outline and finished out the book to help realign my progress and get me motivated again.
All I need now is focus which for me comes by sitting down with my laptop in a semi-quiet atmosphere with at least 45 minutes to an hour of time. Anything less than that seems to be a waist as I cannot pull myself into the story in less than fifteen or twenty minutes. Ultimately, it comes back to writing the first sentence which takes me upwards of ten minutes when I sit down. I hope to allocate two to four writing sessions a week now until the book is done. In order for me to hit Christmas, I will need to have the rough draft completed by the end of September. This can be accomplished, but I will need prayers and encouragement from any that read this post.
Along with that, fall brings with it festivals and opportunities of all shapes to promote my work. I will try to give you more details in future posts of upcoming events that I will be attending, but for now, the main two events I have scheduled is the Greenwood Public Library Author Fair in October and the Christmas at the Fairgrounds at the Monroe County Fairgrounds in November. More details to come.
Thanks for sticking with me. I look forward to exciting progress reports on book four very soon. As always, happy reading!