Happy Birthday Tilde!
We spent the day with the Kings. Pho, then the tail end of a Famer’s Market, then presents (so many presents!), then pie. Twas a wonderful time, and I’m so glad we all got to do it.
Did my writing—still got a decent amount of outlining to do for this book. I’ll have to be diligent about it starting tomorrow. Really make sure I “run through the tape” as the ESPN announcers for last night’s Warriors game were so fond of saying. Wild that I start writing the book tomorrow. Whew. Wish me luck. I don’t feel ready. But I am. Just…need to be in the moment. Trust my outline. Trust my bubble. One step at a time.
It’s wild how many books I’ve written, now. Truly. Six, going on seven novels. It will be eight this year, at least. And none of them half-assed. None of them phoned in. Every one a monumental effort. Including this one.
I feel like I’m starting to find myself as a writer. There’s a piece of advice in writing: on million words. Then, you’ll be ready to start. I don’t precisely subscribe to that, given I definitely did not write a million words before publishing my first book. BUT…I do think it bears out in the sense that I think it is about that marker, as I approach it, where I’m finally starting to feel like I can actually DO this. Not that I’m “arrived” or nearly as good as I want and need to be yet, but that I’m feeling ready to start, genuinely start, getting there. I’m really close to 1,000,000,000 words, now. I might hit it this year. We’ll see.
Been thinking about what to write next. I’m also getting close to that, finally. Glory is far enough along, now, and selling enough to start thinking and worrying about what I write next. That’s exciting and terrifying, because I think I can really do something even better. Take another step forward. Or maybe I won’t, maybe it will be a miss, but that’s okay. I can keep writing Glory, it’s already successful, and I can try something else. Keep trying somethings else until I find the next level up.
All that is nonsense, though. All that matters is starting the next book tomorrow morning. Six pages. That’s it. That’s all that matters. It’s the only thing that’s real. Everything else is smoke.
Night night.
And rest in peace, Coco. It’s been three years, and I think about you every day.