So here's the deal. I don't normally write to a deadline. I get to a certain point in my work and I reach out to my editor and say, "okay, I need a date on your schedule." She comes back with a date and "Voila!" now I have a deadline. The thing is, I don't reach out until I feel confident I'm closing in on the end and I'll have time to do all my preliminary passes.
I have plenty of time before the next Elspeth Barclay is due to her. Or at least I thought I did. As an author, I'm constantly second-guessing myself. While I was writing, I suddenly had a moment of "Wait a minute, this scene should come much sooner." Convinced I needed to do more jigsaw puzzling with the book to make the pieces fit, I set it aside and went to visit family for a day. I took a mental break (one less day to work toward the deadline, but I don't want to think about that yet).
The next day I buckled in to address the rearranging/puzzling and discovered I don't need to do as much as I thought (but there is some that needs to be done). In the meantime, I haven't officially written "The End" yet. However, I do feel the need to have things straight and pieced together before I get there. But wait, I have another family day in the other direction. (One more day I won't be working toward the deadline, but some things are more important, no?)
Yes. I'm in a half-panic. No, I don't need to be. As I'm working through the broken parts of the story, I know it will all come together, and I know what the end looks like, even if it isn't written yet. I still have time to address everything AND finish writing before my deadline, and I should even have the chance to do my self-editing passes before I send it on.
Tell that to my angsty author, second-guessing, imposter syndrome.
I'm pretty sure every author goes through something like this during the process, which doesn't make it better or easier to deal with. However, experience reminds me to relax. I haven't missed a deadline yet, and my fabulous editor has seen some ugly things from me before when I ran close, or when I "knew" something was wrong. We work together well. While the deadline is hard and fast, I remind myself I still have LOTS of time to finish. (Lots being subjective here.)
So off I go. DARK SHADOWS is coming together nicely, even if I am starting to panic in the process (which, yes, is fairly normal for me).
Oh, and did I mention the last of the Epitaph audiobooks is scheduled for release tomorrow? I have really loved revisiting that series (shout out to Karen Frantz for narrating them!). At last check, the links were starting to show up, but the audiobook distributors DO NOT commit to deadlines, so I can't promise it will be released as promised - but it's coming! Here's a link to what I have:
No comments:
Post a Comment