Rebooting

Apologies for the silence here lately — but there’s been a good reason for it. I haven’t talked a lot about Book 3 of the Inheritance Trilogy here much because it’s been oddly fragile in my head. See, in the days before book deals and deadlines and whatnot, I was like most writers in that I wrote when it felt right. Didn’t matter what I wrote as long as I wrote something, every day. If Project A wasn’t being cooperative, I’d just shift over to Projects B, C, or D. Project A wouldn’t be dead, oh no — just silent. So while I worked on other things, I’d listen for Project A’s voice and then come back to it when I felt ready.

Thing is, I’m getting paid to work on Project A (the Inheritance Trilogy) now. So rather than sit and wait for Book 3 to find its voice, I decided to go prospecting for it, and forged ahead with writing. I figured if nothing else, I could work out the kinks in the concept, and maybe the voice would come to me as I went along.

The good news is: I was right. About a week ago the right voice for Book 3 smacked me in the brainpan, do not pass auditory canal, do not collect $200. The bad news is: I’d written 65,000+ words already. But they were the wrong words, so I had no choice but to reboot. i.e., Start over, from scratch. Which I have done.

Kind of scary, yes. But what’s more scary to me is the idea of writing the wrong book. The characters and the story deserve the best of my imagination. My career deserves my best effort. Readers — since I’m hoping there’ll be lots of you by the time Book 3 rolls around — deserve my best skill. So if that means starting over, then so be it.

More good news, though — since I’ve essentially written this material before, just in a different voice (I’m changing the viewpoint character), it’s flowing pretty quickly; I’ve done about 20,000 words in the first week. Highly abnormal for me, and I’m not likely to keep this pace up the whole way… but who knows? Maybe I will. We’ll see.

Gonna stay a little quiet while I work, though. Gotta listen hard for that voice, see. Don’t want to lose it again.

Oh — and in the meantime, I wrote some stuff over at the Magic District about how I learned to write. Check it out — and note that I’m going on hiatus at the MD for a few months, so that’s my last post there ’til Launch Day. Hope you like it!