Under Pressure...

Thought I'd start us off with a little music. A blast from my childhood:


That woman screaming...? Yeah, that was me...

The amazingly talented, and overall fabulous Heidi R. Kling is sponsoring Author Appreciation Week,so over the course of the week, I'll be sharing some thoughts on authors who have influenced me in one way or another. But today's post is about some of the challenges that authors face on the road to publication, such as, working under deadlines. Or in other words, all about me! O.O

I’ve got a whole lot of Personal Demons related stuff going on right now. Personal Demons copyedits showed up on Friday, and they're due back this week. I was looking forward to them, but when I saw all the RED, they scared the snot out of me—until I realized most of the red marks are for the typesetter and have nothing to do with me or my screw-ups. Whew!!

I’m also working through revisions of Original Sin (PD #2) which is very exciting. It’s seriously edgy and dark, so I was a little nervous about it, but my readers seemed to like it, so…maybe it’s okay. O_o

But then I started worrying a little about book 3, (never fear, book 3 is not the actual title O_O) because, what I found writing Original Sin is that I ended up going back and changing a few things in Personal Demons for tie-in. Original Sin is due to my editor by June 1st, so I’d like to have the first draft of book 3 done before then. That way, if something in Original Sin needs to change, I’ll still have time to do it.

See, the deal is, book 3 is the first thing I’ve ever written under contract. I’m finding it to be an interesting experience. I wrote Original Sin in November to pass the time while we were on submission with Personal Demons. But now, with deadlines for Original Sin looming, the pressure is a little different. When I wrote Personal Demons, I didn’t even have an agent, and wasn’t sure anyone but me would ever read it. With Original Sin, I knew I might be wasting my time, because if Personal Demons didn’t sell, there’d be no point in a sequel. So again, there was the likelihood that no one but me would ever read it. But now I KNOW someone other than me is going to read book 3. My seriously cool editor. And she’s going to expect it not to suck to be really good. *bites nails*

So it was a little nerve-wracking that the voices in my head had stopped and I pretty much had no idea where book 3 was going. I was lost in the literary desert with no plot. And with no voices and a silent Muse, (Orlando was nervous, I think. I know he never really looks nervous, but he’s only human.) I was feeling a little screwed.

The good news is that Orlando's back. *grins*

You can tell, just from the look on his face, that he's serious about getting some work done. So that means, when I can rip my eyes away from him, I can write, cuz Frannie, Luc and Gabe are starting to have conversations in my head again. The bad news is that they’re keeping me awake at night, but that’s okay. And the really good news it that they gave me the entire plot arc for book 3 last week, so right now, they’re my BFFs. In which case, they can keep me up all they want. Sleep is over rated anyway.

So, don't feel bad about thinking to yourself, she's nuts. I know that already and I won't take offense. I'd love for all you sane people to tell me about your WIP. How does the process work for you?