A Writer Keeps Writing

Though Collateral is currently ranked at #3 under Mystery/Thriller category on Wattpad, it's not among the Top 50 semi-finalists in Harlequin's So You Think You Can Write competition this year.  Sad, I know, but I'm actually glad.  For one, it's not what Harlequin wants in a romance and I knew that already, not when it straddles chick-lit and romance that's set in a mystery.  

Still, while there is some disappointment (about 10%), there's a lot of relief going on inside this noggin (80%, while the last 10% is undecided).  Last night, I transferred the edited story from Word back to Scrivener and am ready to spend the rest of October doing a second round of edits for it, including a full rewrite of its ending.  

And then there's NaNoWriMo.  Loving Ashe was actually my NaNoWriMo novel last year and this year, it's Loving Riley's turn!

So being a writer, I write, right?  Or I'm not a writer.

The Morning After

It's the morning after I finished Collateral, my entry in SYTYCW15 competition and the delirium has finally subsided.  Reality has set in, and as I sit here in front of my laptop with its busted keyboard from too much writing and waiting for the coffee to kick in, I have only one thought in mind.

I'll never do that again.

Next time, instead of writing from scratch, and deliriously editing like crazy during the final days just to get to a decent word count, without even finishing the epilogue or last chapter of the novel, before hitting Complete while still wondering if the ending was right, I'm submitting a finished and edited work.  Not one that just got the NaNoWriMo first month treatment - nothing against NaNoWriMo as I've done it three years in a row but, well, you know what I mean.  I'm usually very attached to my characters but with this one, it feels like Heath and Billie were introduced to me and before I could warm up to them, they were quickly pushed out the door and out into the competition world to be judged.

So next time I hear of a writing competition, I need to go in prepared and just submit something that's already been polished.

Still, I really can't complain. I churned out a 90K+ novel in 88 days, pared down to 85K and after a bit of time away from it, I can return to it and start editing and adding in the bits and pieces that got left out from the rush.  The contest results don't even matter at all, because at the end of the day, I learned two things:

1. I learned how to do a blurb the right way.
2. I learned how to write according to a plot I had written down versus just pants-ing the story all the way. And for a self-admitted pants-er (converted from years of being an overdone plotter), that's a huge thing.  

So, I'm taking it easy the next couple of days, though there's still a lot of writing to do, as well as writing-related stuff.  I'm editing Loving Riley, my sequel to Loving Ashe, which I published in August, and while I finalize some things with the paperback version for Createspace, I'm working on a major change for Loving Ashe which I can't wait to share with you all soon.  

Panicking

I'm trying to come up with the final two chapters of my latest novel, Collateral, my entry into Harlequin's SYTYCW15 competition, which you can read on Wattpad.  Honestly, my plot is a bit too convoluted and at 86K words, I still need to get to the final two chapters and make sure the characters go full circle - meaning, get them back into the romance because the romance parts are way too few and far between. But somehow I've let too many days slip past me where I didn't really write (actually more distracted writing than anything - and this thing called kindergarten), namely four days, and I'm paying for it.

Every time I sit and write the next chapter, I feel like I'm writing a completely different story that does not go with the 86K words before it.  Somehow it's taken a twist to darker, more confusing and convoluted territory. I'm bringing in characters who haven't even made any face time in the novel other than being mentioned 14 times into the last chapter and thinking I can get away with it.

But even as I do so, the chapter ends up in the "unused chapters" folder because it just doesn't feel right. I need to finish the novel, and I need to finish it now.  And so I distract myself, hoping I'll get the gist of the story back.

But I think I'm just panicking.  Yep, that would be about it - panicking.

I think my problem is also that even though I already knew who the 'killer' is (no one really dies, as far as the main characters go), I want to throw in that major plot twist, one that will make readers go, wow! never saw that coming!  Unfortunately, neither did I.  So I need to get myself back on tract and get the right killer back on the saddle even if it won't have that kick that good mysteries often have.  And that way I can move on to the three other novels waiting on me to finish editing them!