4th Sunday Surprises

Three years.

Four novels.

Four rejections.

And thirteen months of fabulous blogging.



What have I learned about writing during this time?



TMI.


To much information.


In my novels it comes out in too wordy sentences or redundancy.  In my query letters it was too much information that didn't really matter for the book I was trying to publish. (I mean, how are you supposed to condense a 90K novel into two-three sentence pitch?) Then I talked too much and shared information with my friends or in this blog about what I was writing about and how excited I was.

Then the moment I hit send to my queries, I realized it wasn't good enough and I just probably shot myself in the foot by sending them out. The moment the words would leave my mouth, all the enthusiasm I felt for what I was writing sort of vanished. Editing my completed novel was like swallowing copious amounts of sickening sweet syrup.

It wasn't until recently when I realized what I was doing. Last winter you might remember me working on a "secret" project which I finished in 45 days. Nobody knew what I was writing about until I was 5K from finishing it. It felt great living in my little fantasy world for a month. Never once did I feel pressured nor did I ever hit creative road blocks. That experience should have been my first biggest clue on how my brain works.

This summer I've met several fantastic authors. When asked what they are working on next, they replied by saying whatever the next book coming out was. Some mentioned what they were working on, but most kept their current project mum, saying they don't like to talk about it, because it ruins the creative flow.
They weren't ready to let people into their world.

This week I discovered that is how I work as well. No matter how exciting my current project may be, it's best I keep it to myself for a little while longer. By the way, whose doing NaNoWRiMo with me next month?