I said in my last post that I want to write “like a madman.” And I do! Unfortunately, I have to settle for writing “whenever I get a chance.”
There are some cool things going on though. The first draft on Rebecca is just shy of 15,000 words, so it is growing. Now that I have a better feel for the overall story, I am sneaking in more writing whenever I get a chance (like in the 1/2 hour between getting home from work but before the kids are home), which is reminiscent of when I really started making serious progress on Alex. Watching that parallel develop is heartening.
I’ve also got new scenes for Rebecca popping into my head all the time, another parallel to Alex. I email them to myself, throw them in my master document, and then sort them all out like a giant jigsaw puzzle. This is an interesting process, and one I never would have predicted before writing Alex. The process of writing Children was nothing like that. It’s kind of cool having two different processes, though. This particular one is very liberating because I can just take the idea, capture the basics, and then browse through all the scenes like a smorgasbord whenever I get stuck trying to figure out where to go next. Find the right scene, flesh it out, and voila, I jump right over the writer’s block.
So, momentum is going the right way on Rebecca. Alex is doing well, too. If I haven’t hit the 1,000-books-sold mark yet, I’m very close. I’ll do a tally when I get a chance, here. On the one hand, that feels like, “Ah, okay, I’ve hit 1,000 books. Yep. Still have a day job.” On the other hand, that feels like, “Holy SHIT 1,000 people have bought my book!”
I’m getting a steady trickle of new Facebook fans, which is kind of mind-blowing for me too. I feel like I should be amusing them all. But I hate it when Pages I’m subscribed to put out too many annoying updates I don’t care out, so I’m trying not to do that to you guys. I’ll stick to rare, random insights and updates about the progress.
Speaking of progress, my rate of new posts on the blog has slowed down considerably, and that’s a good thing if you’re looking forward to the new book(s). It means that instead of using that half hour after work to write a blog post, I’m using it to work on Rebecca or Children. My goal is to get a post out here at least once a month, just to keep everyone updated. Beyond that, I can’t say for sure. All I know is I really want to get the next book(s) out there as soon as possible, so working on that is my priority.