Happy Dance Time!

See that? Those are all the 3x5 cards I made for the different scenes in Misfits! (91 in total) Phew. I am so excited that's done! It was a lot more work than I was expecting, and I hit a lot of real-life speed bumps, so I thought I was going to be done with this step a loooong time ago. Now that I have it all organized...its time to tear it apart! I'll explain more about that on Sunday (with pictures!) That's tomorrow's project - and I've been looking forward to this since sometime in November when I wasn't even done with the story yet.

I'm also super excited because I made some real progress in reaching a title for the story, and in figuring out the sequel, all this morning! It's been a big day obviously.

I've known all along that this book was ripe for a sequel, and as I wrote the last couple of chapters it became clearer than ever, but I've never really known what the sequel was going to be about. Today, as I reread and outlined, I found several things that were just too much new information to be including in the last chapters of the book, especially with all the other realizations my characters were coming too. I started jotting down things like "use in the next book," and before I knew it, I realized I just given myself a major driving force for the sequel.

This book is all about my characters finding each other. Yes there's a quest that they're on, and that's very important too, but the quest is really there to drive them getting to know each other and learning to work together. The next book is also going to have some sort of quest to it (that part isn't figured out yet) but the focus for the characters is going to be growth. I'm going to have each one of them gain new abilities (some magical and some probably not), and grow as individuals along the way. I don't know much more than that, but that's more than enough to get me excited!

I've also figured out that Misfits (which is what my band of adventurers is) will be part of the series title. Each book title will have something to do either with the quest, or with the personal challenges facing the group. I know that sounds vague, but it's still a big step forward! I'll keep referring to this draft as Misfits for the time being, just to avoid confusion, and let you all know if I get something more concrete.

~ Ruthie ~

Ps. How is your writing going?

Fear

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Fear. It's something we all deal with. Some of our fears are irrational (there probably isn't a monster in the closet, unless my husband is about to scare me again) and some of them are quite rational (yes, avoiding black widow spiders is smart). There are fears that we have because of a lack of information, there are fears we have based on past events, and fears that are related to current events in our lives. Lots and lots of fears that people deal with in one way or another.

For most writer's there is a fear that we all share. Namely, that our work isn't good enough. 

Now I know that this isn't a fear unique to writers, but I am writer, and I know many of my readers are writers (or artists) and will identify with what I'm saying.

When you write something (or create a work of art) you invest a lot into it. You put in your time and effort, but more than that, you put a piece of yourself into your work. So this fear of not being good enough is very, very personal. 

I have struggled with this fear many times in my life, and most recently, as I've been working on outlining Misfits, the book I wrote during NaNoWriMo last year. (note: Misfits is a working title) I look at this piece of work in front of me and I see all its messy flaws, and believe me, it has a ton of them. One of the characters starts out talking in full sentence and later in the book he only speaks in choppy, broken sentences. One of the character speaks like a normal person and I need to fancy up his language and give him lots of big words to use. There are plot holes. Places where I made things work so I could keep writing and it's just quite frankly not believable. The conversations in places are so stilted it makes me cringe. 

It would be really easy to stop right here and say, "This is never going to be worth the effort. I should do something else." It is going to take a LOT of work to make this book at all readable and, after all that work, what if it's still not good enough? 

Here's the thing though. I can't worry about that yet. As my brother reminded me yesterday, Misfits is a 71k book that I wrote in 29 days. Of course it has lots of problems! Since I've never completed an entire first draft of a novel, and I wrote this one in a very short period of time, there is absolutely no way that the first draft could be anything but a mess.

And so I go on.

I'm 75% of the way through outlining the book, and when I'm done I'm going to spread the manuscript out on the floor, scene by scene with it's matching index card, and make some hard decisions about what needs to be done from there to fix it. I'm committed to bringing this book to a complete second draft, and my fears be damned. I can't let them rule my work or I'll never get anywhere.

Sure, there's a chance I'm investing all this time and effort and I'll decide, in the end, that this book isn't worth publishing, and that's ok. I'll have learned a lot through the process (and believe me I am!) and the next one I write will be better. I have to believe that, or I might as well stop writing. So adios fear, you can pack your bags, I'm not going to listen to your seductive voice.

~ Ruthie ~