Finally Moving On

Or starting over. Or something along those lines. But whatever it is, the ultimate moral of the story is you can't keep a good writer down. There are plenty of people through the course of human history who have started writing a book and never finished it. Or started writing several books and never finished any of them. I'm sure this could be for a number of reasons. Lack of focus, maybe. Or just a general lack of passion. Maybe writing was a passing fancy. Something they didn't actually care about, but figured they'd give a try just for the hell of it. And when the going got tough, they said screw it and moved on with their lives. 

Having already written four novels, I'm obviously not one of these people. That said, I do have projects that I started and haven't (yet) finished. The WIP I was working on during Camp NaNoWriMo has been added to this group of unfinished manuscripts, at least for now. Pretty sure I mentioned this in my last blog post, but I haven't written a word of Dr. Pepper Kisses and Vodka Smiles since June 10th. In fact, until today, I haven't written a word of anything since June 10th. But today on my lunch break, as I was standing by the microwave and waiting for my leftover spaghetti to be ready, it came to me. The perfect way to start a different WIP. One I've been plotting since March, but could never figure out how to write. 

I didn't write much. Just a page or so. But that one page means so much to me right now. I'm back in the game, people. And while I'm a little sad that I only made it about halfway through the first draft of Dr. Pepper Kisses, I know that it's time to move on/start over/whatever. That WIP just wasn't working for me. I need more time to let the idea percolate before I can finish it, because it was too rushed and underdeveloped and just...wrong. And it frustrated me so much that I just stopped writing altogether for weeks and weeks. (Horrible, I know.)

In the meantime, my new WIP is ready, and I'm ecstatic. Not only because it's one of the coolest ideas I've ever had (though that's a big part of it). But also because it's fantasy. I threw my hat in the contemporary YA ring with Dr. Pepper Kisses, but I kept feeling like something was missing. Pretty sure that something was magic. And while magic has absolutely no place in Dr. Pepper Kisses (and I still might finish it, despite that fact), writing the first page of my new WIP felt like coming home.