Tales from the writing cave

It’s going….okay, I guess! 😂

I just hit the 40,000 word mark in my shitty first draft (a phrase coined by the incomparable Anne Lamott which accurately describes this terrifying stage). I’m pretty close to hitting the dreaded 50k, which is when most authors freeze up with sheer fright and realize that we don’t know what in the sweet hell we are doing, who these characters are and how we’re going to get them to “fall in love” and also “become better people” by the end. 

Mentally, that’s about where I am right now 😂 Those first 35k words felt smooth and liberating, but in the past couple days I’ve been contemplating tossing the ole laptop out the window/running away so I’m right on schedule. My first drafts usually end up around 95,000 words, give or take, so I’ve got 55,000 left to write by December 31st! 

Not all of the books I’ve written are published (a few are trunked beneath my bed) so this is, like, my fourteenth time entering this drafting stage and its always the same. I know a lot of readers are also writers (in various stages of their journeys and careers) so know that we’re all in the struggle together and we always, always write our way home ❤ It just takes some arduous rewriting, gnashing of teeth, and dramatically rolling up balls of paper and throwing them into a trashcan. 

**But in Fiona and Max news, I’m about to enter into *final* copy-edits on Monday so that means you’ll be getting a book announcement s o o n !