I know, it’s been forever since I posted! First there was Thanksgiving, and then there was the long-awaited addition to our house! Which has not been as smooth or easy as I hoped.
On the bright side, I’m going to have an new, big living room. The acoustic ceiling in my room is a thing of the past, and when the egress window goes in, I’ll have a four-bedroom house instead of a three-bedroom house. The plastic windows are about to be a thing of the past. And I’m getting a facelift to the kitchen on account of having a new floor.
Yes, a new floor. There was a leak under the kitchen which necessitated a huge hole being cut in the floor. And if you have to put in a new kitchen floor, you might as well put in a new kitchen.
I’m really not put out by this–and I don’t mean to complain at all. I’ve waited for this project for fourteen and a half years, and it’s great to finally have it in motion. We’re just at the point that I feel like it’s never going to be finished because in every room we keep finding more things we should do while we have the walls down (or whatever).
Meanwhile, I’m still writing, although not as much as I’d like to be. There’s just so much activity in my house right now! But I’m still doing my World War II research, and still editing What You Stand For. Today I ran across my notes for the sequel, What You Settle For. I moved the sister’s wedding but I can’t remember why! All I wrote down was that the wedding was too happy to put at the beginning of the book, but I think there was some other big event I was putting at the beginning. Also I had some idea about Christmas break in the Bahamas but can’t remember what it was.
Let that be a lesson to me to write stuff down more.
Anyway, I’m about a hundred pages in to this close reading. I’ve started having those feelings of “why do I think I can do this” and “maybe this story isn’t that great”, which are just part of trying to write a book. And I’m leaning more and more toward self-publishing, since I’m writing New Adult that isn’t about angsty abuse survivors and how they have all the sex and then live happily ever after. I’m writing funny, light (but still with serious themes and even events) and how people change at that time of their lives. I KNOW there’s a market; I know from classes I’ve taken and books I’ve read that agents want to see this kind of thing. I just need to figure out how to get there and self-publishing might be the way to go.
I’m hoping to start the draft on the World War II book in a month or so, after I’ve finished the up-close read of What You Stand For and maybe found a few Beta readers. I think having the story will help me fill in the blanks on the historical context and events and I just have to get there.
ellen mcbee 