Work In Progress

 

        Hello, gentle readers! Hope you are all well and staying safe!

        It’s a beautiful morning as I sit down to enjoy my first cup of coffee and write this. It’s still hot, but this is summer in Arizona…and it’ll be hot for a while. That’s okay. The air conditioner is humming away so I’m staying cool. They say you get used to the heat, but I’ve been here forty-five years now and I can honestly say, no, I haven’t gotten used to it. Still, I can’t imagine being anywhere else.

        It’s been a busy week (it always is between the day job and the home stuff) but I feel like I accomplished a few things, especially on the writing front. I am 42K words into my current work in progress (Wife Unexpected, the fourth book in the Wives of Bravado County series). Now, whether these are good words or not remains to be seen. I am wondering if I somehow got off track, which is entirely possible. Like the last book I wrote (The Madam & Mr. MacLean), I did not write an outline or plot points so I’m winging it…and of course, writing the scenes as they come to me then puzzling it all in as I go. I may have mentioned before that I don’t write in a linear fashion. Believe me, I’ve tried, but it doesn’t seem to work for me.

        I can also report that I have viciously (yes, viciously!) ripped out entire pages in this work, sometimes one paragraph at a time, but more recently, several pages all at once. Does that make me want to cry? Yes. Yes, it does. The words don't always come easy. Sometimes they are dragged kicking and screaming from my brain so deleting them is devastating.

        Still, I am happy with what I have so far. Reasonably so. I’m trying to incorporate everything my editor has taught me (hahahaha, yes, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks!). I have a list of words I’m trying to avoid. It’s a pretty long list and I never realized before how much I depend/use those words and that just makes it so much harder, but I’m willing to learn to make my stories better.

        And that’s about all for me. Wife Unexpected isn’t going to write itself so I should get back to it before the rest of the day takes over. Stay well! Stay safe! And remember to spread kindness wherever you go!

Marie