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| It's coming... really. |
Let's just say, I've got a sketchy track record of completing first drafts. When I first wrote
Multiples of Six, it took me 5 years, on and off, to complete the first draft. But, during that time, I also managed to crank out a 63,000-word YA fantasy in a matter of 6 months (not published). So, when it came time to put together the first draft of
Multiples follow up,
Divisible by Six, I was feeling pretty confident. So confident, that I made promises of 6-10 months. That was obviously a mistake. Two years later, I'm finally finished with the first draft. Yeah, I might've oversold it by 18 months or so. My bad.
So, what is it about the thrillers that bogs me down? Well, right off the bat, it's a much more complicated plot scheme.
Multiples had 2 distinct plot lines.
Divisible ramps it up a notch with 4. Four plot lines that have to intertwine and come to a resolution (of sorts) by the end of book 2. It was a first for me. Most of the other stories I've written have been fairly straightforward linear plots from the perspective of 1 or 2 characters, tops. Four was a pretty big jump.
But, the mere complication of the plot wasn't what slowed me the most. You see, and it shames me to admit it but, I'm a lazy writer. Not in the sense of form and function, but in the sense that I need someone to stand over me and crack a whip. I'm too easily distracted and even more so when the writing doesn't come easy. I overcame this recently by finding a group (
which I detailed in a past blog) to act as my whip. It's just a group that meets to sit and write, but it was exactly what I needed. It gave me two islands of time during the week in which to focus solely on my writing and it accelerated my completion time immensely.
Writing a novel is as much about story creation as it is about putting one word after another until it's finished. You can have brilliant ideas pouring out every orifice in your body, but unless you take the time to crank out the words, all you have are ideas that
might be good stories. I definitely envy my colleagues who can regularly crank out a novel every six months. Maybe I'll get there some day. For now, I'm just content with the good things I've got going on. I'm looking forward to getting
Divisible finished up soon and the trilogy's finale,
Power of Six, started.
Have you struggled to finish that first draft? Would love to hear about your experience.
Very excited to announce that I have set a date to release my sequel, Divisible by Six. The ebook version will be released on December 1, 2013 to the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and iTunes platforms! If you haven't already, be sure to read the sample chapter and sign up to "attend" the release over on Facebook (don't worry, no purchase necessary ;). It's been a long time coming. I hope there's still some fans out there interested in the story. The paperback version will probably release later in the month or, more likely given the holidays, early in 2014. Stay tuned!
