Tea & Whiskers: A Novel Idea

A few weeks ago, I was asleep, and I presume I was in a deep sleep at about 2am in the morning. Suddenly, I woke up, and I sat up. Charcoal tumbled off me.

It had hit me, the plotline of a novel inside a world that I had been sitting on for over a decade. I grabbed my journal and scrawled the idea down, turned around and fell back asleep. I didn't think about it again until a few days ago when I looked at what I wrote. And wow - it was good. It solved all the problems I'd had with that story. It was a complete novel. A contained story inside that world that I had built. I was ecstatic. I had been wanting to write a story inside this world, with these characters, for years - but I had never been able to find a plotline that worked.

Now, I had something.

But.

I didn't want to write it. Not yet. I wanted to finish Rusted Hearts, and The Crack of Middrift first. I'd promised myself I would finish those two novels this year. I could not abandon them to start another project, not when they were so close to being finished.

Thus, I have spent the last few days using every spare moment, just writing. A fire has been lit beneath me. I want to reach the point where I can write The Tea Traders, but to do that, I have to finish Rusted Hearts and The Crack of Middrift. Yesterday, I finished the first draft of Rusted Hearts. I sent it off to Officeworks to print and bind so I can see all the things wrong with it. O___O Now I'll work on the second draft - the refining stage, where the characters wants vs. needs emerge and the themes take stronger shape.

For the first time in a long, long time, I get up in the morning excited to sit at my desk and write. I'm excited to explore really complex themes through characters lens.

It's nice to just let go of the pressure about the publishing industry that has overwhelmed me, and to just accept whatever 'it' is, I am not 'it'. I'm just happy writing. So, I'll just do that.