Michelle's Notebook

I am struggling to find a place to start. I can't very well dive to where most of the action is happening, but I also don't want to drag out all the time where the action is centered around governing a broken kingdom.

I might need to bring out more of the character arcs, but also I don't want to pack too much into the book.

I think that's fun.

Now I have to ground the calender and I have celebration ideas that didn't come up at all in book 1.

I might be able to get away with it, but maybe not.

I am itching to get drafting on it.

But I probably have to scribble out ideas for another week or so before I have a clear enough idea of the plot to actually dive into it.

I think I usually start drafting too quickly and then I end up stuck or needing massive structural changes that make the whole process slower.

I have grown a lot as a writer.

This draft is painful. There are things I really like, for example, this version of Halvar is fire, love him. Some of the ideas are solid, but the execution is trash. The pacing is horrific. Truly. Like, the section of the story that is going to be the heart of book 2 is like 40 pages in this draft and it covers an entire year.

I am so excited.

I have been calling Zuriel the Dueling of Vale not realizing that the word I was looking for was Dual, not Duel.

Watching sword fighting videos made me realize that Dueling is an actual thing and I was like, "Where does dual come into it?" Not realizing it was a different spelling for the meaning I was aiming for.

No one looks at anyone for some reason everyone looks to everyone else.

Also I inject these random little facts that have nothing to do with the scene that follows. Like, I am sure I meant for them to, but it didn't happen...so....

For some reason I never put "for a moment" it's always "a moment"

And I say that way too much.

I could hardly do any new revisions because I was working in a really sad scene, and then I realized something about one of the characters and did emotional damage to myself that no one else will know about until years from now when and if I finish publishing this story and then get to the connected story.

Then I got my sample edit back from my editor and got real feedback for the first time ever and I am so excited to get feedback and keep improving it.

What do you mean I have to know what I want the cover to look like?

And why is there a back cover!

God bless the sweet artists who I have been having conversations with about what I might want my cover to look like.

It feels weird to be doing this stuff when I still need to finish cleaning up my revisions and getting it edited.

It's one of the weakest points of the draft.