Disappointment, Celebration, and Self Expectations

June is a big month in my house. The first two weeks there are either a birthday or anniversary most everyday. It also marks the first half of the year gone and I can't help but look at what I've accomplished because it affects the second half of the year. The produce garden has been planted. We started on some landscaping for the front of the house that had to be put off on one side because a robin decided to nest in the clematis.

Our 23rd anniversary is this coming weekend and a couple days afterwards is Jason's birthday. He'll be 48 and he's already worried about turning fifty. 

The last couple of days I've been lamenting my inability to write shorter standalone stories. I think I have a plot that would fit well into a 25k story and low and behold it's turned into a 175k trilogy. Not what I was looking for. I wanted something where I could get in and get out in a couple of weeks, and I wouldn't have people waiting on me.

Normally, I'm pretty cool with writing longer stories that need more than a couple of installments to tell the whole story. But I've been feeling guilty since people are still waiting for Prometheus to be found or they want the last book for Sumeria's Sons or "wait, is that another series called ION?". It's like I can't help myself.

Writing series can be daunting and being in those character's head space all of the time can burn me a bit. I have to take a break from the characters and worlds because I can't read another word. 

On the other hand, there are these bits of advice that eat a me. Like, you should only write trilogy because you lose your audience after book three. Or, you should have the release of the series in quick order while the buzz is still hot and you have people's attention. 

By some professional's estimation, I'm doing this all wrong. I have to remind myself that it might be wrong by their standards but right for my wellbeing. I don't write well on schedules. I have to switch it up or I'm throwing away all the words I'm writing because I'm dissatisfied and hate it. There are times in the middle of a manuscript when I crave writing a marriage of convenience between an human and alien. And I can't. I can't stop what I'm doing to go off on a tangent (even though I'm positive that tangent would be yummy good). Then I get upset because I'm not writing fast enough because, you know, tangent is breathing its fiery breath down my neck. There are a dozen stories I want to explore and I have to make myself wait or nothing would get done.

That's what everyone wants... to get to the end and see how things are resolved, right? 

Well, I'm really close with coming to that ending with the final book in the Sumeria's Sons series. I had hoped to have Releasing Chaos wrapped up by the end of May. That date flew right on by. But definitely sometime this month I will have the first draft finished. I just might cry my eyes out. Partly because of the story, and partly because everything but 40k is hand written. I'll have to type up somewhere between 60k-90k (estimating right now. I might be lowballing it). I'm such a mediocre typist that I dread it even though I console myself with editing while transcribing.

Some of my other accomplishments in the first half of the year, Kenzie Cade and I have completed Devil's Heart. Now we're working our way through it (slowly) between our other commitments. Death Mask and the 2nd ION book are coming out sometime later this year. I don't have any details yet. 

What is still yet to come. Darksoul... I had planned to have the book out before now. There have been complications out of my control. Even though I'm unsure at this moment, I'll be making some decisions soon to get this back on some kind of schedule. Fate & Destinies is being self-edited. I'm not sure if I'm going to self-pub or if I'm subbing it somewhere. Bespoken is my next writing project. I also anticipate starting on the second book in the Devil's Dawn series with Kenzie. Somewhere in there I want to insert time for writing the tangent story. :)

That's it. The disappointment in my limitations. The celebration of not only anniversaries and Jason's birthday, but of what I've accomplished so far this year. Last but not least, what I expect I can complete before the end of the year. :)

Thank you for stopping by and reading!!