The Grinding You Hear is the Shifting of Gears

So today Chloe left me. That’s got to be considered a good thing. She’s the main character of Joy Comes in the Morning, the novel that was requested at conference. It is now in the mail.

It is strangely freeing. For now, it is out of my hands. Sure, I’m totally willing to revise more based on editorial (or agent) feedback. But for now, I truly think the novel is as strong as I can make it and I’m glad to set it free.

I’m taking a much-needed few days to regroup my brain. At work, that includes a top-to-bottom cleaning of the store. I haven’t totally neglected it, but too close! At home, we’re renovating the living room so life’s a bit messy. My computer time for the next few days will be getting my first set of 17 family calendars printed and in the mail. I did a marathon Photoshop focus yesterday and have it pretty much ready to print.

And then it’s time to turn my mind back to the story that started jittering and dancing in my brain back in May. I’ve got a very loose outline in place and some research done, plus a few sample chapters I wrote between revising Chloe chapters in August. I’m pretty sure I’m going to scrap those, but they were useful in getting to know my characters.

So the writing goal for the next month (or the remainder of the year, really) is to finish preparing to write Green Acres (book one), starting in January. I’ve also got a couple of full novel crits to do before then. It’s good to know what’s next 🙂