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Moving on from the milestones of the month, let’s downshift back to reality... Because the truth is, most days as an author do not make the highlight reel. Most days are, well, pretty darn ordinary. Especially when I’m in the middle of drafting a new book. I am, admittedly, a creature of habit. I like my routines. I enjoy consistency. And I need solitude to fully immerse myself in the writing process. When I’m immersed, I can easily crank out 3,000-5,000 words in a single day. That’s not to say I’m writing every minute of those days... But it does mean my schedule is clear enough that I can reach for my laptop whenever the muse strikes or an idea pops into my head. Sometimes, it’s a snippet of dialogue. A random sentence fragment. But those snippets and fragments often turn into a full paragraph or page or chapter. As the iconic Dorothy Parker once famously said, “Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat." Much as I love to travel, it badly interrupts my writing flow. I wish I was someone who could write on planes and trains and in faraway cafés, surrounded by strangers. It sounds so romantic. The glossy, well-lit Hollywood version of author life. Annnnnnd… scene. But I know myself. To make any real progress on a project, I need to hibernate in my writing cave for weeks, if not months. I need to wake up early every morning, brew a huge Chemex of pour-over coffee, put my fingers on the keyboard, and write until my mind is as empty as my mug. Most of my June looked precisely like that. Boring? Perhaps from an outside perspective. But I assure you, being in the zone (creatively speaking) is the farthest thing from boring I can imagine. My mind is buzzing with ideas, brimming with characters… And my Type-A soul is always most satisfied when I’m being productive. Consistency. Momentum. Fingers on keys. Ass in seat. That’s how the books get written, my friends. I don’t know any other way to do it. Unfortunately, there are inevitably things that come around to shatter said momentum. Other responsibilities that cannot be ignored. For me, that was the arrival of copyedits for THE REALM REAPER, book three in my fantasy trilogy, which publishes next February. It was surprisingly difficult to shift gears out of my new dystopian duology, to submerge myself once more in the high fantasy world of the Remnants. I didn’t want to stop writing, didn’t want to lose all of the progress I was finally making. Alas, this is one of the last times I’ll get to make changes to THE REALM REAPER before it goes to print here in the USA, and is sent to publishers across the globe for translation. So, it matters. It matters deeply. I love the characters of my fantasy trilogy. I am immensely proud of this final book… but after three full years of working on it, writing and revising and reading and editing and rereading… I am ready to say goodbye. At least, for now. Maybe someday I will return to this world and write a spinoff or a prequel or a sequel… Who knows? Only time will tell.
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