#secretproject21

Wildflowers + Coffee + Completed Manuscripts. ✨ I finished drafting #secretproject21 yesterday evening!! I finished it 18 days ahead of my personal deadline (it took me just under 2 months to draft it). My mind feels like mush and the story needs A LOT of revisions but...it’s a complete story! And I’m really proud of it. The characters in this book took me by surprise, which I feel like is one of the BEST things an author can encounter. Characters who breathe and bleed and leave a mark on you. ✨ As soon as I finish a first draft, I print it out to read and revise it on paper. So that’s what I’ll be doing for the next few days. And hopefully someday soon I’ll be able to share more about this book and you’ll have the chance to read it if you want. Thank you for listening to me ramble and supporting me on this journey! ✨ (at Georgia) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw7EeMJncV-/?igshid=1eerghy9ov01k

Found some old magic among the oaks and moss. ✨ Revised around 40 pages in 2 afternoons sitting on a porch with a view of the sea. I think the ocean muses were rather good to me. 🌊 I’m heading home now—I’d be so sad to leave the coast if I wasn’t missing my dog back home 😂🐶—and I’m hoping to have this #secretproject21 completely revised by Thanksgiving! We’ll see if I can manage it! 😅 (at Walker's Landing - Amelia Island Plantation) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4fb_jZAyCx/?igshid=l3mipkeik392

I just realized I haven’t posted in a week. 🙈 But it’s due to the fact that I have been in another world. I’ve descended into an unexpected, full blown drafting mode. Which means I’ve been surviving off of La Croix and larabars, showers are minimal, and sweat pants are the norm. For a few weeks now, my amazing writing buddy @isabelwriter09 has been encouraging me to begin drafting the sequel to #secretproject21. And I was so afraid to start writing it, for reasons I don’t know and really can’t explain. I kept putting it off, making up excuses. But Isabel put the fire under me, and last week I started drafting what I’ve affectionately dubbed as my #fireproject. And I just hit 22,000 words in this manuscript and I am like WHOA WAIT...what is happening right now!? All of this to say: the words are flowing and I have been pulled under by my own characters. But I will be be back soon! I promise. Because I have some exciting plans for SISTERS in the works that I can’t wait to share with you. Annnnnnd something shiny and beautiful will be unveiled in the next few months! 😍 (at Georgia) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1JiafVA5yV/?igshid=2uyetteezk9t

“She tried to speak, but wildflowers now tumbled from her lips. She shut her mouth and the pennywort lads began to untangle, and the alder maidens began to groan back into trees.” 🌸 —A quote from my #secretproject21. * * I tend to get a lil anxious when I share lines from my current projects, but I always love it when authors I admire do so, even if it’s just a tiny snippet. 🌸 I’ve taken a lengthy break from drafting this summer, focusing on health and revisions for SISTERS, but I’m about to dive back into writing! Sometimes it feels daunting, and I’m like, “okay, how do I write a book again!? 😂😅 But I’m always amazed by the current that takes me under when I have a good idea simmering. 🌸 Fellow writers, what are you working on as summer comes to a slow, sweltering end? Are you longing for fall as much as I am? 🍁✨ (at Georgia) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0tX1r1gmTM/?igshid=1e8tzt93kyxqk

Do you like to outline your story before you write it, or do you like to discover the story as you go? 🌙 I’ve always been an exploratory writer (which is also known as “write by the seat of your pants”). I don’t always know where my characters are going to take me, and it makes for a very exciting, sometimes bewildering experience. A lot like floating along on a river (pardon my cheesy metaphor). You don’t exactly know where your story is taking you, but you trust the flow and current of it. 🌙 That’s how #secretproject21 began. A spark of an idea that I claimed and held on to. I didn’t know all the twists and bends and details of this story, but oh how I let it carry and surprise me. 🌙 But the other day, I reached the beginning of the third and final act, and I was like, all right. It’s time to outline the last few chapters. So I spent a day outlining the end of this book. And I’ve been keeping to my outline (a rare feat, ha!) and I am so full of emotions right now. But it’s always like that when I reach the end: bittersweet and surreal. 🌙 And to think it all began because I found a river and bravely jumped into a boat and let the currents carry me. (at Georgia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwuWtBiHhgT/?igshid=h68v75zqafxx

I like to keep story secrets in my hair.✨ * * Annnnnd I know I’ve been a bit absent here this past week, but I’ve been busy drafting #secretproject21 and I’m currently 68,000 words in! There’s this one scene I’ve been envisioning since February, dangling it like a carrot before my imagination to keep me drafting in the moments I didn’t feel like it, and now I’m *almost* to this scene and I am SO EXCITED to explore it on paper.😭✨I’ve discovered that I always have “pillar scenes” when I’m drafting a book. These are a few scenes that I envisioned at the inception of the story—they’re emotionally charged and very intriguing/exciting to imagine and write. They also guide me as I draft, since I have to figure out all the other linking scenes between them. There will always be scenes that are more fun/effortless to write than others. Some scenes are far more challenging and make me stall, but as long as I have a pillar scene to build towards, I can work through hesitation and uncertainty and bravely keep going.✨ Fellow writers, how is your current WIP coming along? Do you also dangle upcoming scenes like a carrot to keep you motivated? What other tactics do you use to keep going? ✨ * * * 📸: @vertigowilson (at Georgia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwXI3eJHFyL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=kssg4y0fm2h7

Watching the sun set on the front porch while I do some research for #secretproject21 ✨ Fellow writers, where do you like to write? I mainly work in my office, but when the weather is nice, I love to write on my swinging porch bed. ✨ (at Georgia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwDeEkGHR9f/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=3k756x6mte19

I didn’t write much over the weekend, but I’m about to draft a scene in my #secretproject21 that I’ve been thinking about for a while and it’s exciting/terrifying. I’m almost at 40,000 words in this project, which I can’t even believe! It seems like yesterday I was in the middle of Chapter 1. My word count goal for this first draft is 100,000 words but...ha, we’ll see. My books are always waaaaay over that. 🙈 * * * I also got a beautiful (secret) TQR-inspired something in the mail today that I’m signing for @faecrate ‘s April “Hold My Crown” box, and I am all 😍😍😍. If you purchased their April box, you are going to love it! ❤️✨ * * * And in case you’re wondering what my chalk wall says behind me in this photo, I’ve had this quote up there for a while now and it’s one of my favorites: “Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal.” —Sappho. ✨ * * * I hope you all are having a lovely Monday! ☀️ (at Georgia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BvuTZ-sHeXL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1w8zwwzs6dys2