Update

Note that I didn’t say “post-pandemic update.” That shit is still going on, so keep wearing your masks. I sure as hell am.

I’ve been meaning to write an update for a while, but as I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m the world’s worst blogger. Mostly I think nobody cares what I have to say outside of storytelling, but also I tell myself that this time would be better used for writing.

I am a nurse and so of course was not forced out of work last year. In fact, I went from working 24 hours a week to a 40 in August 2020. I thought I had it all planned out and that I would have enough time for writing, horses, and personal care, but I was mistaken. I could do it when I was working three 12-hour shifts several years ago, but somehow that extra four hours working five days a week had been amazingly time restrictive.

Also, all three of my kids live with my husband and I, plus my extremely extroverted, talkative granddaughter. So when schools went online last spring, I ended up on babysitting duty. Also, having six people in the house ALL THE TIME meant it’s been tough to find a place to write and not be interrupted or distracted.

In addition, we found out we had termites and had to fix one living room wall, part of a dining room wall, and a wall in the basement. This turned into renovating both the living room and the dining room, and while they are beautiful and wonderful, it was a lot of work. We did hire someone to do the stuff we couldn’t, as my husband (also a nurse but employed at a hospital) started working 60 hours a week last summer. And because the living and dining rooms turned out so well, I decided to declutter, rearrange, and repaint half the basement, which is about 1000 square feet. Luckily, we had that huge snowstorm and I couldn’t get to work for several days, so that gave me plenty of time to paint most of it. I’ve finished all the painting (yay me!) but have the remaining tasks of putting things back where they belong, framing/hanging artwork, and a final decluttering session.

Even if all that hadn’t happened, I’d still have been messed up writing-wise, because the pandemic threw me for a loop just like everybody else. I got stressed out, pissed off, and gained weight like everybody else. Unlike a lot of people, our finances didn’t suffer, we didn’t lose our house or cars, and none of our family members became ill with SARS CoV2. My youngest child finally started driving on his own and even bought his own car! After driving him to work for 2 years, I am still jazzed about that.

I was going to start my new writing schedule this week. However, I am having carpal tunnel surgery in July and will be spending my days off this week trying to get the basement finished. Everything just takes so much longer than I think it will, and that, my friend, is really annoying.

All the writing advice says to write every day at the same time and that just hasn’t been working for me. It takes me a good 30 minutes to sink into that flow state and then it’s time to quit. I told myself not to get hung up on needing three or four hours to write and to give the daily writing thing a chance. I did and it doesn’t work for me. So I’m going to shuffle my life around somehow and go back to how I used to do things.

How is the writing going, you may ask? Well, not fabulous. If it weren’t for NaNoWriMo, I wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much done on it as I have.

Chosen is going to be another whopper like Druid/ I’m already at 612 pages and about 220,000 words. In comparison, Druid around 679 pages and 224,000 words.

Houston, we have a problem, and I just now realized it.

After reading Karen Chance’s blog post about how she was splitting her latest Cassie Palmer novel into two books, I started considering doing the same with Chosen. Honestly, after her comment that she makes zero money on the big print novels, I’ve started thinking maybe I should split up Druid, too. $25 is a lot to spend on a paperback, and I get about $4 of that. This is basically a hobby, so I’d rather my books be more affordable.

Amazon’s print on demand need to be limited to under 700 pages due to issues with books falling apart if they’re bigger than that (understandable). Chosen is probably going to end up being 900 pages. So I either need to have a fifth book or chop the hell out of it. Or make the print smaller (10 point instead of 12), which might be weird in a trade paperback? I’ve considered Warlord for a title and could start it after the Finns get to Ward the first time (trying to avoid spoilers here) and end it somewhere in Chosen.

Ideas and suggestions welcome! Let me know what you think!