What a Great Weekend Looks Like to a Writer

The weekend felt like it started on Thursday, which was my first (nearly) full day off in two weeks.

I actually spent most of Thursday working on editing for clients, but I also treated myself to working on part of The Phoenix, one of my novels in progress. I'll add a synopsis at the bottom of this post.

Then on Friday afternoon, my last interview for the day moved the conversation in a direction I felt was useful for another story, too, so the interview was especially fruitful.

And then, we had this great storm on Friday night, perfect when you're composing a Gothic novel set in the late nineteenth century (The Phoenix). With incense (Christmas gifts from the kids) burning in the background, I wrote until nearly midnight, when the coffee quit working, and my mind felt mushy.

But I was back at it again the next morning until early afternoon, when I switched to editing for clients. Then Rebekah and I watched two episodes of the Chinese historical drama/tragedy The King's Woman, which, although fiction and with some unexpected cheesy moments that spoil some scenes, is also fairly accurate from  a historical perspective (at least, that's what reviews and Rebekah tell me).

It's about the tyrant king who unified China and built the precursor of China's Great Wall. We're down to the last ten of forty-eight episodes.

On Sunday, I arose extra early to so I could work on Lycanthropic Summer, my first Gothic novel that has some subtle horror elements, before I switched to work. This was also very fruitful because one of my interviews also went off in another direction, which proved useful for another story that's in progress. 

So I wrote one full-page story and then designed a page and created a web version. I also wrote two more stories and conducted two more interviews. Not bad for a Sunday, methinks.

I finished the day by reading through portions of Lycanthropic Summer I'd previously written. And I caught up with some of the kids. And I had a nice dinner with them. And I watched the Chinese drama with Rebekah. 

So - a very nice Sunday, too.

If all this sounds writing like work, it really isn't. Different types of writing and editing engages my brain in different ways. 

The "work writing" is so interesting, the hours just zip past. I have more ideas in progress than I can tackle efficiently, and I'm humbled I earn my money this way.

The books I'm editing for clients are so interesting, it's like getting paid to read. I'm even more humbled they trust me with their creations.

Writing fiction, although it was structure, feels more like play.. Many hours can pass until I realize I have not moved. I think it's because the pressure is off. I'm making up all the content, and I have no deadlines.

And if it sounds like I just churn these books out, I don't do that, either. My writing friend Ken McGee is FAR more prolific than I am and just released the second book of yet another series.

I started Lycanthropic Summer over a year ago and I'm only halfway done. 

I conceived the Limbo trilogy (of which The Phoenix is the first book) also over a year ago and never got serious about working on it until the day after Christmas.

Here are the summaries of my two novels-in-progress:

The Phoenix:

This story is told from the perspective of two groups of people in alternating chapters. I am about three-quarters done with one set of alternating chapters.

Late 1895 in Munsonville, Michigan is all about survival and rebuilding: for the fishing village still reeling from deadly tragedies, for twelve-year-old Marie Clare who is grounded at Munsonville Inn with her dying father, and for two newly turned vampires foraging their meals from a dwindling supply of villagers.

But to rise strong and unscathed, some will be sacrificed along the way. Who gets to live and thrive? And who decides?

Lycanthropic Summer

This story has just three chapters - June, July, and August - and they are written in the form of diary entries.

But then this novel also has a subnovel, the novel Caryn is writing, and that has ten chapters.

The subnovel is writen, and June is nearly completed. I have also written parts of July and August, including the ending.

Caryn Rochelle loves werewolf stories and promised herself she would write the world's greatest werewolf love story before her eighteenth birthday. But with the date just months away, Caryn has shredded more drafts than she's kept and is feeling desperate.

But then she learns the town's most prestigious couple has a dark secret: they're keeping a savage boy her age locked in their basement. One glimpse, and Caryn's inspiration skyrockets. Caryn knows she ought to report them, but...

Can it really hurt to wait until she finishes her story?

And THAT is how I like to spend my days off. 

Photo of one of my series' business card on a South Caroline beach, courtesy of Timothy Baran