I think I might have finally broken through the horrific block I’ve had with Book 3 of the series! Unfortunately, my breakthrough comes at the cost of one of my favorite scenes.
Oh, well. Kill your darlings and all that.
After much consideration, I realized that, while the amount of time passing from Escape the Light to Book 3 was good, the situation I was trying to force on my characters wasn’t. Why were they doing this so far after the end of ETL? Why did they wait? Why why why? Since I couldn’t answer the “whys,” I culled most of the scene and started over. The new starting point is at the same place in the timeline, but the characters are in a different situation that better fits their personalities.
So I’m making forward progress, but I had to backtrack to do it.
Of course, now I have to weave in the parts of the original scene that are still viable with the new scenes. That’s its own special kind of hellish headache. Like, these paragraphs here need to gtfo, but these can stay because they set the scene/move the story forward/etc. But they have to fit with the previous new scenes, so I have to work from A to B while incorporating the older stuff that I’m keeping. Ugh.
I’m glad to be drilling my way past the block I had, but I still need to keep up my momentum on the embroidery. My deadline is fast approaching, and my fingers aren’t quite so fast moving. I should have loads of time today to work on it, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be as far along as I’d like. As soon as I’m able to turn some lights on and get sewing, Book 3 will be back on the back burner until I get my commission load straightened out.
It’s a bit of a bummer that I won’t have Book 3’s draft done by the end of the year like I’d hoped. I didn’t want to take so long for each book to finish, but I guess since ETL is slugging through the publication process it’s not as huge of an issue. My publisher is growing in leaps and bounds as far as their project list goes, but they’re still a very small staff working with a very large caseload. I have to be patient.
Sometimes I hate being patient.