If you're not me from the future, this isn't for you. You should stop reading, now. Seriously. Or else.
Are they gone? Yes? Good. Now that we've got rid of any unwanted eyes, we can have a frank chat about how the new book's going.
It's hard, isn't it? Starting something from scratch. For years, you've been working on ideas that have been fully fleshed out in one way or another, either in your head or on paper, and now, you're stumbling blindly through a new idea, waiting for it all to *click*. But do you want to know a secret? It's not going to click.
But it will get better. Bit by bit, things will begin slotting into place. A character here, a setting there, and eventually you'll have a finished first draft on your hands, and it will be awful. Character motivations won't line up with plot, the big finale won't feel big enough, and you'll find more typos than you think your pride can withstand. And all of that's fine. Get the first draft finished, then worry about refining it. It might look like an ugly hunk of rock now, but there's a diamond in there somewhere.
"But the first draft of The Dead Cities was really polished" I hear you cry. "It clicked!" Yes, it was polished, and it felt like it all fell into place quickly, but it wasn't truly your first draft, was it? There was another version years ago. Weren't those characters already fully formed in your mind before you began the second version? Weren't you able to pull from that first version to make your "first draft"?
The answer to all of those questions is yes, and all of it made writing easier.
This time it's different. You're coming up with a new world, a whole host of new characters, and have a new plot to wrangle. But you've got a killer hook to play with, one that's going to be a lot of fun. Trust that it'll all come together eventually, gradually. You wrote a corker before, and you can do it again, but you won't do it first try. Nobody does.
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