68k on Fey Touched

I just hit 68k on Fey Touched.  I can hardly believe it because I started in on October 31st, writing roughly 30k a month.  I haven’t stopped to plot ahead (just what’s in front of me currently – the “headlight method”) and I haven’t really stopped to analyze much of anything.

Normally — or what’s been normal — for the past few years, I’d work myself up into a frenzy about how awful my writing was, and naturally the muse would disappear.  I’d get depressed, and I wouldn’t make my words for the day.  I’d get more depressed, and on and on.  Yeah, there are flaws in Fey Touched.  There is an entire thread that might need to be reworked.  There are some worldbuilding things that need to be tweaked.  There’s a telepathic dog named Pixie that needs to play a larger role in the first third.

But, I also had a few surprises: a potential romance between the MC and someone I didn’t expect, the plague angle which I believe rocks, and the telepathic dog thing.  Oddly enough, I’m not a dog person at all, but I have a soft spot for my sister’s boyfriend’s German Shepard/Ridgeback mix.  And so Pixie was born.

Writing this way takes me back to the old days, when I felt free.  When I wasn’t so worried about getting published.  I just wrote.

So Fey Touched has brought the joy back.  It wasn’t even planned — it was a stray thought I had while filing one day at work and it grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go.  I had to write this book.  And while the revision might be intensive, as I suspect it will be, I’m very happy with it overall.

I also have not a single thing written down in the way of plot, not even for memory purposes.  I do have a great memory, but since I hit 30, it’s been slipping a bit.  Normally I would write things down.  But having it in my head playing like a movie works.  Writing this quickly (and for me, this is very fast) keeps the story in my head and it’s flowing, changing, mutating.  I have ideas all the time, but one or two will stand out.  And that’s my next direction.  That’s how I’ve managed to write so much in going on 3 months.  It’s just there.  I don’t have to even think much.  It’s pretty amazing.  And exhilarating.  This is what I meant by writing with joy.  It’s amazing.  I feel better.

I have gotten stuck a couple of times, but each and every time (with the exception of the 11k start that needed to be trashed in the beginning), it’s been only for about a day.  I’d get into my writing headspace and brainstorm and poof!  It’s there.  It’s always there.  Pretty damn amazing.

I’ve got ideas for books 2 and 3.  Book 2 deals with the fallout of book 1, and book 3 introduces a new character who switches sides.  It’ll be cool.

Still on track to be done around February.

And I need an ending.  Currently it’s nebulous, but I trust my muse to figure it out and hopefully share.  Soon.