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I edited the first chapter of Anita 14 this morning, but when I tried to do the outline a funny thing happened. I now have chapter two done, and notes on chapter three. I am not intending to write this book right now. I can’t. Merry 5 is next in the deadline schedule. But damn, I have nearly forty pages of Anita 14. Apparently the book is ready to be written. I guess I should have expected it. For one thing I’ve finally had enough of a break from work that the writing is pushing at me again. Pushing at me not with deadlines, but with the pressure, or need to write, to create.
But also, the plot of this book was the Edward part of DANSE MACABRE. I had to take the part that brought Edward to town out when I realized just how much other plot was already there. DANSE MACABRE was over a thousand pages long, can you imagine if I had tried to keep in the plot that needed Edward to come back Anita up? The book would have been impossibly large. But just as it’s left me with more type-written notes than I’ve ever had before I started writing a book, it also means I know what happens for most of the book. There’s no sitting at the computer and wondering what happens next, or how to work in that clue, I know already. I think that is one reason that I now have two chapters written, and that they’re both almost twenty pages a piece. It’s cool that it’s writing so fast, but it’s not next. Interesting problem.
I’m hoping that part of the renewed urge to write will transfer to other projects. I am hoping, very much, that when I sit down to start Merry 5 next week that the pressure of creative juices will be there for that book, too. It would be nice. But my fear is that just like with DANSE MACABRE that this Anita book is ready to write, ready to go, and that I will somehow damage my creative flow by jumping to a different project when I’m doing almost twenty pages a day. One of the many issues with doing two series for me. Merry was supposed to help me rest from Anita, so that I could come to both series fresh. But in some ways writing is writing and work is work. Even I cannot truly rest from one series by writing another. I needed to rest that part of me that gets ideas, and needs to put them on paper. No matter how much I enjoy a book, it is not the same thing as taking a break. You’d think it wouldn’t take me a trip to Italy to figure that out, but it did. They say travel broadens the mind, but for me, it just let me see my life and work from a new angle. I’ve come back refreshed and renewed, but still puzzled on how to juggle two series without damaging the flow of either book. It is a puzzlement.
Tomorrow morning I’ll give it another try to do the outline, but I’m betting I’ll come away with chapter three. Hard to complain about that, but I’ve got to start on Merry. Strangely, I’m excited about starting the next Merry book, too. Though, because I’ve only done four books in her world, the characters are not as real to me, the voices not as strong, so the press of them is not so loud in my head. Somewhere around book eight, BLUE MOON, is when Anita and the gang got very loud and clear in my head. It will be interesting to see if the same is true of Merry and her crew.
In fact, I’ve had two ideas for other series that have nothing to do with Anita or Merry’s world, and oddly enough, they, too, have been clearer in my head. Characters, world building, images, scenes, plot points, swimming through my head. Though, I did try and sit down and write some detailed stuff on one of the ideas and it was hard. New world, new characters, always a little difficult at first. Anita and I are like a well-oiled machine; we know how to work together. The two new worlds will be years away. One isn’t ready to write, and the other there isn’t time to write it, now. Two series is more than enough. And yes, I haven’t forgotten that my first book, NIGHTSEER, was supposed to be the first of four books. Sometimes I think I will go back to it after Merry is done, in about a decade. Other times I’m not sure I can go back and finish the story. Just is there are some books that appeal to you as a child, or teenager, but when you come back to them as an adult they do not fill your heart the same way, I fear that books that you write yourself may be the same. That perhaps the time to write my first series has come and gone. I don’t know, all I know is that it does not speak to me. The characters do not knock on the door of my subconscious. They did once, and no one cared. The direct sequel was rejected, and NIGHTSEER, itself, did not sell well enough initially. My success with Anita and now Merry has kept NIGHTSEER in print. In fact, the people that rejected the sequel came back and sort of hinted, or maybe asked, I can’t remember anymore, if I could finish the series. But it was years later after the Anita books had really taken off. By that time I was committed to Merry and Anita, and there wasn’t time or energy.
I’m going to go try and organize some notes, either Merry or Anita. I do not edit on screen. I still edit and organize on paper. The screen is not real to me, paper is real. Early experiences with computers taught me that on the screen can go away and be beyond retrieval, but printed paper I can carry with me, and I know where it is. Jon has finally convinced me that the memory sticks, or whatever they’re called, are secure, and will hold lots. But it’s only been in the last few months that I trusted to it. Once a technophobe . . . but, hey, I’m working on it, okay.