Deadlines and Brilliance

I’m more than half way through my rough draft of Elise Wolfe’s story. Now that I’ve had a year to adjust to all of my kids being in school full time (and yes, it really took me a whole year), I’ve started this school year off with a fairly lofty writing goal. I wanted to have the rough draft finished by mid-October, and just to show I was serious about it, I went ahead and booked a developmental edit for October 17. That’s less than four weeks from now and—amazingly enough—I’m on track.

This Alice in Wonderland retelling has been interesting because, as you know, I don’t do magic in this world. So, whenever I’m able to morph the utterly fantastical into realism I get pretty excited. My son was hanging out in my office last week when I suddenly sat up with a gasp, clasping my hands together in excitement.

He goes, “Woah, what just happened?”

“Uh, nothing. I just figured something out.”

He gives me side eye. “Do you always do that when you figure something out?”

“Only when I think the idea is BRILLIANT.”

“Uh huh,” he says and keeps spinning in the spinny chair.

So, yeah, it’s a fun challenge and I love it when I find not-crazy ways to incorporate things like mazes and silly croquet games.

Also, I am loading this one with romance. I feel like my rough drafts of the other Winberg Tales have been a little light on romance and I had to go in and beef it up after the fact, but this time I’m making sure it’s in there right from the start. All the major eye contact. All the longing looks. All the finger brushing and cheek stroking and leaning in. It’s all for you, my romance-loving friends.

…Actually, it’s for me first and foremost, but you’re all a close second!

And here’s a gorgeous photograph from my Just Ella cover photo shoot. Because every blogpost should have a pretty photo.