My next book is having an identity crisis.

It’s my husband’s fault.  Sort of.  I’m totally blaming him regardless.  Here’s what happened.  Sort of.  This isn’t a story so much as backstory. 

There’s a pattern to the titles in the Love in Andauk series.  You’ve noticed the pattern, right?  Raise your hand if you noticed the pattern.  I will explain in case there’s someone in the back not raising a hand.

The titles are parts of familiar sayings.  Not clichés.  They come from familiar, wise sayings because that sounds a whole bunch better than pointing out that my titles are all clichés.  If that was your answer when you raised your hand, you can put it back down.  Everything Old finishes with is new again.  Out of the frying pan comes before Into the Fire.  The third book was going to be called Mind Over Matter. 

I settled on that title some time ago.  I think it fits the book very well.  Recently, my husband pointed out that mind over matter is a complete saying and not only part of one, therefore, it does not fit the theme.  I knew that by the way.  I decided it was more important for the title to fit the book than to fit the theme.  I thought it was close enough.  But my husband was having a hard time letting this go.

The fact that it didn’t quite match the other titles started to bug me, too.  And it didn’t only bug me that my husband kept bringing it up.  I really didn’t want to start over.  I already went through a hundred or so sayings trying to come up with something I liked, and going back would mean admitting I missed a good one the first time.  But if the titles are going to have a theme, they all need to work within the theme.  I reluctantly went back to the figurative drawing board. 

I came up with two possibilities.  This is a case where two is not better than one.  I only needed one title, which meant now I had to choose.  The first one, By Its Cover, felt more like it went with the story.  The second one, To Those Who Wait, just looked prettier.  When I slapped those titles on any of the fifteen or so different cover backgrounds I’ve created, the capital Ts and Ws have similar loops and show up in pairs and line up without any descenders trying to intrude on the lower line.  It’s so much easier to place.   

That’s really not a good reason to choose a title.  I might as well pop random letters on the cover until something looks nice.  By Its Cover isn’t necessarily an ugly title.  It just isn’t playing nicely with my non-artist’s eye.  The y wants to drop down and punch the C in the face and the I is overpowering the tiny word it's leading and that last word is an awkward length because I can’t figure out if it’s too long or too short.  Of course, when I asked for help I got conflicting opinions.  Guess how much that helped.  And at least one person insisted I should keep Mind Over Matter.  So helpful.

I am confident, however, that those words will start behaving as soon as I stop being cranky at renaming the book at such a late stage.  Because that’s also the good news.  It’s late enough that one way or another, somehow or other, by hook or by crook, this cover will soon be finished and the title permanent. 

Maybe One More Week

I’m working on typing a draft of my next book.  It’s already written out, and I expect it to come out between 55000 and 60000 words.  How long will it take to type it?  Hey, that sounds like a math problem.  Let’s plug in some numbers for an estimate.

If I type 60 words per minute (I don’t know, but I think that’s reasonable.) and 3600 words in an hour, it should take about 16 hours.  Even if I have no more than 4 hours a day to type, the draft should easily be finished in a week, right?  It’s already been a week, and I’m not finished.  Let’s apply some life to those numbers to find out why.

Reason #1 – My handwriting is awful.

Every few sentences, I need to pause to squint at the page to figure out what a word is and ask myself why I wrote something that doesn’t make any sense until I figure out that I guessed wrong the first time.  Oh, that says snowy night, not swervy right.

Reason #2 – I edit as I type.

Sometimes I have to stop because I find a glaring continuity error or a stilted conversation or something else that needs immediate attention.  There will be more editing later, but if something is really bad it can’t wait.  Or if a character says, “Come up with something witty to say here when you type this.”  Yeah, I leave notes to myself in the draft when I’m really stuck.

Reason #3 – I can’t type fast enough.

I read what I’m typing, which should go without saying.  Now and then, I come to a part that I don’t remember very well.  I’ll get impatient and stop typing to read ahead because I need to see where it’s going.  If there’s something I don’t like, see reason number two.  It’s easier to change something as I go than to back up after I realize a conversation is confusing.  And if I don’t find anything I want to fix, I might look up and realize I’ve been reading for a half hour while not making progress on the typing.

Reason #4 – I get distracted.

Yeah, this should probably go without saying, too.  Who doesn’t get distracted?  Sometimes I hear the washer shut off and get up to put the clothes in the dryer.  Sometimes the phone rings.  Sometimes I remember that I’m sitting at a computer with internet access.  Sometimes I look at the calendar and notice it’s been a month since my last blog post.  Sometimes I grudgingly push the typing aside to work on that.

Reason #5 – My fingers get tired.

Have you ever typed for four hours straight?  I don’t mean just sitting at a computer or even composing as you type.  I mean trying to keep up a constant rate of words per minute.  That math problem assumes I am a robot.  If I manage 90 minutes or so with nothing getting in the way, the tiny muscles in my fingers begin to protest by aching and slipping onro the erong keya mote frequently.  When I sense a sharp increase in backspace use, it’s time for a break. 

Break’s over now, back to work for me.

Love in Andauk Continues

The second book in my Love in Andauk series, Into the Fire, is now available.  I guess that means I should start talking about book three.  What?  You want to know more about book two?  I just said it was available.  Go ahead and read it, then let me know if you still have questions.

Let’s talk about book three.  I haven’t finished the first draft, but it already has a title.  I’m kind of excited about that.  I think the hardest decision when I started the book was whether or not to write it in 1^st person.

If you’re a fan of my work, thank you.  But what I meant to say is if you’re a fan, you’ve picked up on the fact that some of my books are written in 1^st person and some in 3^rd.  The guy usually plays the biggest role in which point of view I choose because 1^st person is always the girl telling the story.  I have to ask myself if I want to include the guy’s perspective.  Usually, this is obvious as soon as I start forming the story in my head.  Sometimes he has interesting family members or situations I want to be able to write.  Sometimes it feels important to show how he’s progressing in the new relationship.

The choice wasn’t as obvious for this book.  The main guy has no fun qualities, no quirky family, no investment in the growing relationship and… Come on, you know I’m kidding!  Of course he’s great.  Sometimes a story just seems to work better when the reader gets to learn things about the guy or find out what he’s up to at the same time as the girl.  That’s what I mostly thought when I was outlining this third book.  There were still a few scenes I wanted to write from the guy’s perspective though.  It wasn’t enough.  I’ve read books where the perspective shifts for only a couple of chapters, and I found that awkward and annoying.  I don’t want to write awkward or annoying unless it’s something the characters are doing to each other.  Because that can be funny.

To get rid of the uneven split, I had to either cut out some things or write some things from a different perspective.  There are a lot of “things” involved when I’m being vague on purpose.  Why am I being vague on purpose?  Who is telling this 1^st person story?  Which guy is playing a significant role in it?  What is that title I was happy to settle on so early?  Why all these questions?  I’m trying to give you more reasons to check out Into the Fire.  All of these questions (and so many more) can be answered if you read book two because there is a short preview of book three at the end of the ebook version.  You’re welcome.