a little glimpse into book three drafting

My hand hurts, and I'm kind of burnt out, and I have a million things to do, but I don't want to stop sharing this tiny, behind-the-scenes sliver of my dreams coming true.

Happy summer, everybody. Full disclosure: I'm dictating again, and only allowing myself one pass to edit this thing. Any typos, clunkiness, or broken links are entirely my fault. But, like I yapped about last month, I'm trying to save my perfectionism for when it really matters, and let the rest of this stuff go.

On that note, the formatting required to keep up with the template I created for the past couple of newsletters is definitely not worth the extra work for me right now. (I'm having a little trouble with my hands after I got this weird virus.) But I did want to share a little bit about what I'm up to this summer and how that's keeping me distracted and inspired in the lead-up to publication day for The Best Worst Thing. (Which, by the way, publishes in less than four months! Truly crazy!)

how I'm writing book three

Because nothing is ever easy, it turns out that every book I write has a completely different process. The process for TBWT was, for lack of better term, batshit. This is partly because I had no idea what I was doing, but also because I was trying to gain entry to publishing, and I understood that nothing short of the absolute best I could do would get me even close to being agented and then, later, published.

I was also a perfectionist with book two, but book two is a whole other story, and one that I am not completely ready to talk about, mainly because . . . publishing! But we'll get there!

And now, book three. As some of you know, I started a really cool project for my third book a few months ago, but ultimately shelved it around 10,000 words because, despite its high concept, high stakes, and immaculate vibes, I didn't want to write it.

Instead, when the stress cleared, I started a new project that was less ambitious in scope, but twice as incisive as a character study.

brilliant, right???

In a way, I've never been as excited to write something as I am this book. And I think, in part, it's because I finally realized that my favorite part of storytelling is characterization. God, do I love to just cut people open.

I know that might sound weird, but that's what it is. The ability to sit at my desk and see through somebody's skin is absolutely wild. The fact that I get to do that while these characters are at their most vulnerable—falling in love, facing their wounds, fighting for their beliefs and misbeliefs—is such an immense joy for me, even when it hurts. And, yeah. Sometimes, it really does hurt.

But hey—I didn't spend thirty-seven years gathering all this trauma just to keep it to myself, did I? As a career over-sharer, I’d venture to say no. One of the things I love most about writing, on top of all that character work, is turning my baggage into silver linings.

Anyway, my goal is to write a first draft of this book over the course of the summer. I'm using Pacemaker to give myself a daily goal. I've never completely worked like that before, either, but as I get further and further into my career, the fact that this is a job—one that I rely on for some of my income—the more serious I have to take the schedules.

I've always been good about sitting down to write, in part because it's my day job, so the muscle memory is well-established, which helps me meet my publishing goals. But the publishing goals are also creating pressure. By creating a workflow that makes sense for me, I've been able to reduce some of that stress by thinking about the project on a daily level instead of zooming out and thinking about how much work it is to write a whole goddamn book.

It helps that Pacemaker allows you to customize pushes and pullbacks in your work. When I'm writing a first draft, I write every day. That's a common tip, and it’s not for everyone, but it really clicked with me when I read it in Stephen King's On Writing. I agree with him that taking even a day away from a first draft makes the book feel a little foreign and fuzzy, and as somebody who's chasing both character and truth in my novels, the last thing I want on the page is distance. That said, I'm a wife, a mother, a friend, and a whole bunch of other things, too. Shit happens, and my world doesn’t revolve around my writing. It can’t.

So, I asked the software to create a writing schedule for me that pushes me the most on Mondays through Thursdays, and then pushes me the least on weekends, especially Sundays. I also looked ahead at my summer and identified a few days when I was not busy at all, and again instructed Pacemaker to amplify pushes at those times. As a result, I have a plan that makes sense for me that is entirely achievable, and that could have a first draft in my hands before my daughter starts school again.

And I'm not allowing myself to think too hard about the rest of it right now. I'm interested in cause and effect in my stories, and so, when my workday begins, I read what I've written the day before, and then I write what I think would naturally happen next. Most of the time, it works. This is especially true because I'm not interested in writing a perfect first draft. (LOL, like that’s a thing.) What I'm interested in is exploration! At this point, any thoughts or ideas that pop up as I write, even if at the wrong time or place in the story, are worth recording and pushing and excavating.

Dictation has also added an interesting wrinkle to this book, which I've chosen to write in the third person, because now I'm really watching my characters, and third person gives me the ability to make these sweeping and (sometimes, hopefully) interesting statements about them. I don't know how many will make it into the final draft of this novel, however that may look, but it's absolutely fascinating to add that little dose of objectivity to the narrative.

In other words, in this draft, I'm watching N and G play, but I'm also figuring out what makes them tick. It's one of the reasons I'm so obsessed with third-person narration—outside of the cinematography it lends to a story.

Anyway, this is officially a yap. So, without further ado, here's the playlist that I'm using right now for my book three vibes. I'm going to link it here, which I suppose may give you access to the rest of my Spotify. Please don't judge me. I used the elliptical machine a lot in 2016. I'll figure out how to make the rest of this stuff private later.

Oh, and finally, I'm reading some really interesting books to prep for this one too. Specifically, When Breath Becomes Air. I'm not a non-fiction girly by any means—I started reading this one only because one of my characters is a doctor. But oh my god, maybe I am a non-fiction girly???

This book is a memoir about a truly top-notch neurosurgery resident who's about my age and is about to embark on a tremendous career when he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is as much a writer and philosopher as he is a doctor and a scientist, and watching him weave all his experiences and interests together in this cosmically horrific but defiantly human way is absolutely remarkable.

Other books I'm reading or revisiting right now include Kate Goldbeck's You, Again and Ali Hazelwood’s Deep End. Quite the mashup of genres, but hey, I like my love stories weird.

That's it for now! Would love to hear about what you're reading or listening to in the comments!