I was going along smoothly with Creations of the Galaxy, already having realized that the way the story headed, it was a bit different than I planned. I previously mentioned that it ended up headed toward more of a “discovery” tale than anything else. A story about connection, not where my mind headed, which was “take down that place” (place being where Prism was created) and action-ish. Think it was last week that I realized the changeroo happenin?

Then yesterday I had a bit of a hiccup. When I sat down to write, my brain was all . . . now what? It was either keep going with just conversations (boring) or stop and figure out what’s up. So I grabbed the notes that I originally wrote down before I began writing, and went about reading them. I found a lot of notes that I had actually forgotten. It was so funny. I even mentioned that just now with Jeanie, I forget a lot of what I write. The stories, the scenes. I zone out to the point (sort of) when writing that I come back to it in edits and can’t remember that I did write it.

If you’re a writer, you experience that?

So I perused my notes, tried to figure out where the story was going to go from here, and I’m a bit iffy on whether I have an ending. I’m at that point where this may be one of those rare occurrences that I end up just writing a note and saying “ending here,” and figuring the rest out in edits. As I said, it’s very rare for me to do that, but sometimes it’s necessary. We’re too close to the story when we write it so that it needs a cool down period.

With the first story that sets this series off, Hope of the Future, I actually did another rare thing for me. I’d been so deep into the edits, and so . . . I almost want to say lost, that I finally told Jeanie I was gonna send it to her to see if all of it was making sense. This may have been one of the stories that helped me learn to separate the editing sessions too. It’s just that it’d been under so many changes, and so much angst inside of me that I couldn’t keep focusing on it. I needed to get it out of my face and see what another opinion thought of the plot. Was it making sense, or was it a complete jumbled mess of a tale?

My brain wasn’t seeing any of it. It wasn’t able to step back and see the story. To say it was hard on me might be putting it lightly. It was a struggle. But let this serve as a lesson for people in the beginning stages. Or, even an experienced writer who is open to a new way to look at the editing phase. Occasionally it is freakin okay to step back and have someone look at it in the rawest form if you’re unable to disconnect and you are all out malfunctioning. I was. I was beyond that point. It was either get it out of my face, or dump it entirely.

Turned out? Totally helped me out. The story wasn’t as bad off as I felt it was. Yes, there were issues, but I was ready to completely throw it out and be done. I couldn’t separate myself. I needed another set of eyes.

I don’t advise that. I don’t encourage people to just willy nilly throw it away and be all, whatever here. That’s not the editor’s job. I didn’t have someone else who could look at it, and Jeanie has that ability to just read it. To turn off corrector and be my beta reader. She knows how I work, and we get each other so much it’s sometimes funny. So we work that way. So for me, it worked, and I knew where I was at, and what I needed. I wasn’t just bowing out, I wasn’t giving it away, expecting her to fix it.

Sometimes we do need to step back and set something aside. I put out so much that I have the chance to be a little more . . . I want to say easy-going, but that has the wrong connotation to it. As if I’m being lazy, or not putting forth the effort, when in reality I do. I work sometimes harder and spend more time on things than I need to. I’m a perfectionist with my work. It’s why Jeanie being hard on me works for me. I like the challenge. She works as hard as I do. I push myself harder than most may. Then again, I may not push myself as hard as some others do.

But if I’m safely putting out a good amount of work every year, and it’s a steady pace that I can maintain without working myself into the ground, I think I’m doing pretty darn good. So if I had to mark “ending here,” on this book, and set it aside, as guilty as I would feel about it, I would also be like, that’s okay. Sometimes a writer has to scrap a book entirely. Sometimes a writer has to set it aside. Sometimes a writer needs to change the story, to rewrite the book. We all have our own methods that work for us.

This is mine.

And it’s up for changing all the time. That’s not a bad thing.

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