Installment #7: Sidetracked!

Writing ByTrying My Hand At Writing A Novel

Mar 8

Sometimes getting sidetracked is a good thing.

This week I spent 4 days in a virtual women’s book conference filled with ladies of all ages who look like they fantasize about living in England in 1592.

The link popped up on my Facebook feed about two weeks ago and for about 24 hours I debated about whether the $149 price tag was worth whatever info I was going to walk away with. I didn’t know anything about it. None of the speaker names were familiar to me. I had to Google every one of them. When I finally pulled the trigger, my thought was “what’s the worst that could happen? I lose a few hours of my day and a coupla hundy.”

Now, I don’t consider myself an idiot, but every morning it was a gigantic challenge to find the day’s links to each Zoom room. Since all of the panels began at 9:30am ET, I was dutifully online at 6:30am PT eager to soak up as much information as I could. But finding the info was hhhhaaarrrdd and messy.

HOWEVER, after all of that strife to get in… here’s what I learned.

1) That sometimes sitting in a virtual room full of other people trying to do what you are doing is all you need to feel comforted and supported

2) A lot of women are out there making it happen by self-publishing

3) These women are willing to share everything to help you do it too. I was actually shocked at how many people were offering up their email addresses and inviting people to reach out

4) There aren’t enough BIPOC in publishing either on the admin side or the writing side

5) Depending on your experience with them, Amazon is either a huge problem or the best solution to getting your book out there

So, even though I didn’t reach my writing goal for this week, I still came away with value for the time spent.

As for the novel itself, here is where I stand so far…

I’m 12 short chapters and 11,286 words in. Although in truth, in more than one place I have slugs that say MORE DESCRIPTION HERE. I was trying to force myself to write without editing, but even then, sometimes the words flow and other times they must be coaxed. It almost feels as though I’m conjuring up a spell, beckoning the images to come forth and watching them swirl up like a mist around me. But then I find myself standing in the middle of the fog. It’s still on me to bring those ideas into sharp focus.

All of that takes patience and time.

This morning I was back on a writing sprint and about two pages in when I sidetracked myself to write this post. I’m getting back to work now.