Still learning

 Hello again!

This week I thought I'd talk about something I've been spending a lot of energy on lately, experimenting with my writing style. 

I self-published The Shoreline of Memory in July of 2020, meaning I've got a couple of years as a published author under my belt now... but you know what? I still don't know the best way to write or edit a book. Seriously, before my latest WIP, I never would have taken drafting (micro-drafting that is,) proofing, making timelines, or any of these preparatory steps a fraction as seriously as I am now. 

With Shoreline, I'm not ashamed to say, I did everything the hard way. I didn't keep half as many notes as I should have, and as a result, I ended up spending much more time editing than should have been necessary. Not that I knew how to edit either. 

With The Passageway of Memory, I ended up going overboard on almost everything, keeping far more notes than I could ever use, and basically over-correcting my lack of planning by hyper-focusing on minutia, instead of just writing the book. 

By the time I got to Memory's Terminus, I had a pretty good idea of what it took to write a book. I knew the characters, the plot, and the incidentals, but editing was still messier than I'd have liked, and I had a few more Beta reader delays than I'd planned on (this was during the height of the pandemic, everything and everyone was delayed.)

Now, as I'm working on my latest WIP, I'm still trying out new things. Keeping active notes as I go, organizing those notes to keep things clean, and building a full timeline to clean up some issues I'm having. This time around, I'm planning to find my betas among other writers, rather than my family and close friends, (though I may break from that rule when I know someone with special insight into the themes of my book.) 

Looking back at this journey, I am left with a few questions; what lies in the future for my next book, and will my writing style be recognizable to me, in a few more years? I can't think of a better way to find out than to dive in and keep trying things out!

Have a great day, and keep writing!