🎟️backstage pass into my writing life

Since last week I shared my favorite romance novels (that’s an affiliate link), this week I thought I’d share a backstage look at my own writing life right now. 

I’m taking a hiatus from my fantasy novel The Apothecary of Stories, which is SOCLOSE to being done. Some of you know that I’m in a period of grief right now, and that novel weirdly deeply explores some themes that are happening in real time. 

In February I got an idea for a romance novel, which I promptly became obsessed with, and the
interesting thing is that this book is remaking a lot of how my writing process has worked in the past. 

I haven’t gone full-on plotter (y’all know I’m an intuitive writer), but I can see farther ahead in this book than I normally can. I have a loose idea of where the characters end up (where I normally don’t have a clue) and I have a sense of some of the big moments between where I am and the end.

This book is also coming through a LOT faster than my past writing has. I started it in February and am already about one-third of the way through a first draft - about 115 pages in. 

Last week I took a solo retreat to Woodstock - one of my fave places - and I ended up writing 19 pages in a single day, which is the most I’ve ever done.

And just to be clear, I wasn’t like chained to my computer; I went for a walk by the reservoir, swam and sunbathed at the swimming hole, took a long bath in the afternoon, and treated myself to tacos and ice cream at night. 

That same day I picked up Julia Cameron’s book The Right to Write, and that shifted something big for me. In an early chapter, she mentions cooking dinner for a friend, saying goodnight to her, and then wandering into her study to write “just a little” before bed. 

And it occurred to me that I could try being less precious with my writing time. What if I could just casually drop in when I had a few minutes? What if it didn’t have to be a whole production every time I sat down to write? 

Sunday morning, back at home, I was drinking my breakfast smoothie outside on the patio and I went inside, got my laptop, and wrote a couple pages before my kids found me and we started the day. 

Something about that casualness - writing for “just a little while” when I have a small pocket of time - feels unbelievably luxurious.

(And this entire story is EXACTLY what I envisioned when I dreamed up Summer of Writing. It’s not too late to join us - we still have six weeks left if you want to jump in. ;) 

There’s also something really freeing about writing in the genre in which I am currently reading the most often. 

And this is yet another way in which I’m untangling from what I was taught was “real literature” - namely, bachelor’s and graduate degrees that insisted Harry Potter, “chick lit” and Eat Pray Love were less legitimate because… they were more commercial? People liked them? 

Whatever. Goodbye, elitism; hello, things I actually love.

Happy writing, my friends.