I’m at 80% into my first novel to be published. After lots of polish and editing, of course. Longer story means lots more work to make it publishable.

I started this back in November, and while six months doesn’t seem like a horribly long time in the grand scheme of things, it’s been a long road for me. Just sitting down and plowing through a thousand words on a project I was some days thoroughly sick of looking at. Knowing what happens but telling myself “now show the reader”. FINISHING! I’m not quite finished yet, but I can see the end of the tunnel and the light is very bright.

I’ve learned a lot doing this. I’ve started to write faster and just let go and let the story happen. Some days its easier then others. Sometimes it means just throwing out everything I have for a specific chapter and redoing it. But the end result is worth it.

When I took a break from “Mermaids Curse” I worked on writing the beats for the next Eternal Tapestry book, or the beats for my Silo novella. It means that when I finish “Mermaids Curse” I can go onto the next project, and possibly write it even faster.

The thing about MC… I didn’t have beats written for it when I started. Just a very general outline. So much has changed from the first sketchy outline because I didn’t really know what was going on in certain parts. I wrote a lot of it by pantsing. Figuring out that this prisoner needed rescuing. Realizing how the original curse got cast, and then changed. Knowing that a sylph would be be causing mischief and cause some of the characters to run for their life. All of it discovered while I wrote.

I am hoping that by finishing proper beats and knowing exactly where I am going with the next book, and how A leads to B, and C leads to D, that I will actually be able to finish a book, a WHOLE book, in two months. That’s my goal, at least. Two months to write. One month to edit, design, format, and make a cover, and then finally… PUBLISH! Every three months.

I’ve decided that I need ten full length books out, plus my three series (Eversword, Eternal Tapestry, and Illgotten Gains) in order to feel like I’ve given a writing career a real stab. Till then I just need to keep plugging away. And hopefully faster each time I pick up the keyboard.