A week into the Celtic new year and a month after ECWC I thought it was fitting to post a progress report on my writing.
Submissions have been sent to agents and editors. Golden Heart entry sent out in the mail today. Critique partnership formed (hello Danielle). And my current work in progress is cooking right along.
I am over three-quarters of the way into the rough draft of the second novella in the Sprawling A Ranch series. This one features Mark, the best friend of Trey from The Cowboy Way. Mark was the one who made me think that there could be more beyond the first book. The one who encouraged all of the other hands to demand their stories. And let me tell you, they are a rowdy bunch.
This book is flying onto the page. In other my other works, I sometimes struggled linking scenes together. Not so with Mark. I fluidly move from chapter to chapter. I can sit back and see the entire scene unfold on a movie screen. Each action a logical sequence of events that I can easily transpose to the page. Sometimes not exactly how I pictured it, but fairly close, and not nearly as quicklyas I’d like. I’ve gone back to thinking that a direct link to my brain may be the way to go.
Is the reason the story is coming to me so easily because my writing is getting better, or because this is a story that writes itself? Ever since I realized a few months ago that I was a layer, I find myself not worried about getting it right the first time. I am much more lenient on myself about just getting the concept down, knowing that it will work out in later drafts. When I went back to edit the first few chapters, I could better identify what was missing and add the actions and reactions. This process has made writing so enjoyable that I ache to do it every free moment I get.
It is also making me even more anxious to sell the series. It would kill me not to be able to share the other ranch hand’s stories. Even now, Ben is waiting in the wings. Incredibly tall and built like a mountain, he watches me with those intense green eyes, vibrating that dominate nature he can’t contain. Colby is right by his side with a smile of anticipation. You already know what is going to happen with them. They want their stories told and I am dying to write them.
Okay, I can admit it. Even if they are never published, I will still have to write them all. They have become too dear to me to not give them life on the page. How can I not share Jack’s wickedness, Adam’s fearlessness and Rafe’s passion? They will be written. Someday. Now this is where I click my heels three times and send my positive thoughts out into the air.
They will be sold, they will be sold, they will be sold…