So last week I finished my book Terrahtu: The Black Dove. It’s taken me half a lifetime to create, but it is complete. Now that I am able to make the time the cobwebs have started to clear in my head. Things that were difficult to complete have taken on new life. I am simply amazed. It is as if finishing one thing has opened the door to so much more and I have only realistically begun my journey. Sometimes you just have to finish something to help you move to the next level.
For example, this book that used to be 44 chapters long and 800+ pages is being turned into three different books. I have seriously weeded out my plot issues and it truly is a different story now. I had at least 5 characters that I was following around in the last attempt which upon reflection I realized made it difficult to read. The problem was that I loved my characters and felt like they all deserved some spotlight time. The solution: let them have their own books. This of course means I have to create a whole lot more than I started with, but the ideas are limitless. I’ve created a world with its internal and external conflicts that will continue in each book. All I have to do is, big drum roll here please: keep writing.
In revising this past book I have literally created a future of books to keep me company. The funny thing is the whole process has allowed me to generate ideas for other stories too. So tonight when I started to revise a chapter and felt all bogged down because I am so ready to move on, I put it aside and pulled out my Stuck In Normal story that I had started. I am so surprised at how much my writing has grown since I first started the first draft of Terrahtu. I’m writing things that I know people would enjoy reading and I am simply amazed at how easily the words come to me these days.
What is the key? The fact that I am able to focus on the dream. That there is no longer a voice in my head telling me I have to make the logical choice. I don’t have to find a career to fall back on when I struggle as a writer. I can simply be, simply do. I obviously cannot change the doubt and challenges I had in my past. You cannot revise that. You can only learn to move on and plan for your future. For now I am simply all about living the dream: Stay at home mom, loving wife, and proud author.
Author Elissa Daye 
Writing is an art, and art comes from intuition . . . from a world beyond this one. If you try and logic it, you kill it. Very good post and the fact that you’re living the dream, as long as it is YOUR dream, is a wonderful thing!
Congratulations on this and good luck with it.
What a sense of accomplishment!!! I felt the same way about my trilogy…I finished the first book, and it could have stood alone, but I loved the characters so much, I had to keep going…and then again…it still wasn’t finished. I kept going.
What a wonderful moment that you’ve got things all falling into place. You are where you are supposed to be.
This definitely inspires me to finish my novel. That will free up the energy I have tied up in that “unfinished business”. The hardest part for me is not writing, I spend a lot of time not writing, but thinking about what I should be writing. Once I begin writing it often comes pouring in from who-knows-where? So, thanks for letting me know that novels can actually be finished.
What really helped me was writing for National Novel Writing Month where you make yourself write every day and even if it is not your best writing you celebrate the fact that you were able to get words on paper or screen. You can always go back and tear yourself apart later. If you tear yourself apart before you even start you are left with the same nothing you had before you started. You clearly have great ideas, Russell. If you need someone to motivate you, I’m happy to try!
Feel free to check out my other wordpress blog: iwroteabooknowwhat.wordpress.com. I am writing about my experiences now that I have finished my book and hope to keep it going all the way to my journey to being published.