Processes and Priorities

 I've been working on my epic fantasy series for nearly a decade now. Maybe it has actually been a decade by now... In any case, I wrote a hefty first draft that is -- needless to say -- exponentially different than this current draft. I daresay it is the last draft for the first book, unless an editor from a publisher tells me otherwise. For now, I'm onto book two.

Well then. I am a personal trainer by trade. I absolutely love everything fitness and watching people achieve their dreams, do things they never thought they could, be who they knew they always were, and come into who they are. It's quite a blessing to be able to serve and help them.

That said, when the pandemic hit, I had to RUN. I work as a contractor out of a local boutique gym, but I'm still my own boss, and as an entrepreneur, if you don't hit the ground running when some calamity like a pandemic happens, you're liable to go out of business. So while everyone else was complaining about being bored or isolated or unable to live life, I was sprinting so hard along with my colleagues and the owner of the gym that we were BEGGING for a vacation. We are exceedingly blessed to have the family of clients we do; we are blessed to have survived the pandemic, and in some ways, we are grateful to it for pushing us on some virtual things about which we had been dragging our feet.

Now. That all said, 2020 was also the year I buckled down and really started hammering on my book. I got one of those Facebook "On This Day" things a few years before about a post I made announcing I had finished the first draft of my book SEVEN years earlier. Goodness, where does the time go?

That was... 2017, I think? So yes, it's been an official decade I've been working on this now. I DID take some time off, but my characters have never left me, and I haven't really written on much else. They are fast becoming a part of my identity as a writer, though I need to decide if that's a good thing -- and just beef up that universe like Brandon Sanderson does and Pat Rothfuss, and all the greats who make side novels to their books -- or ... well, that's for later. No need to figure that out right now.

In 2020, I completed a renewed draft of the mess I had been working on in 2017 when FB reminded me of how slothful I was being (yar!). Come the end of 2020, I had written not one book, but two. Then, in 2021, I began typing the first page of book three, realized I was getting far ahead of myself, and pulled Book One back out and began editing.

It took all of 2021 to edit that dang book. So far, it's been through two (ish) rounds of Beta Reading, and I have a few who want to read it again after I make some of the edits, so there's still some tweaks, but overall, it is done.

So. Priorities. In 2020, I would write (or try to write, or plot, or outline, or stare at the screen in desperation and irritation while my Muse ignored me) for at least 2 hours after work on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and again on Saturdays and Sundays. Needless to say, it was a lot given my full-time personal training schedule (which involves MUCH work on the back end, separate from the appointments themselves). So THIS year, 2022, I have begun rewriting and editing Book Two, MUCH more confident about where this thing is going and how to bring it to the end I already know it has in Book Three.

My goal it attempt to do the same as 2020, but perhaps maybe four of those days instead of five. Right now I'm studying the PNOE Metabolic Training device, which is highly in-depth, and I'm revamping ALL of my clients programs for this upcoming year. Needless to say... I didn't write tonight. I'm bummed. So I pulled this up, assuming I'd write a small blog post (I promise, if you've stuck this out so far, my posts will not always be this long. I have a tendency to ramble -- but not in the books; promise. That part gets lopped off with a kiss and wink and barely a tear -- but I do not wish this to be a huge internal monologue). Obviously, as much as I've written, I still have some juice in me. But I did get the skeleton of my programs typed up.

The trick will be to finish the PNOE certification, flesh out all my clients programs, and still manage to get four days of two hours writing in. I can do that. I did it before, and spells if I won't do it again. (Ahem; there's a hint at some of the cursing in the books.)

Alrighty then. Dinner is awaiting. And while I might not actively write tonight, sometimes nights like these are a blessing. It forces me to plot, so when I get to it tomorrow/Wednesday, I should be able to hit the ground running.

Euku willing. I mean... God willing. ;)

Jess