I’m experimenting with a different work style this time…mostly to see if I can somehow get more efficient with the spare time I have, and mostly because I’m hearing the whooshing sound of another deadline fast approaching.

So far, I’ve written two times a day – 850 words at lunch (about an hour) and another 850 words when I get home. 1,700 words isn’t shabby. At that pace, I could finish a small novel in about a month. Valentina’s Feast, however, is suffering by being written by me. While, yes—I can string together 1,700 words a day…but getting me to write more than three or four days in a row is the challenge. I’ll get a good head of steam going, and then peter out. Most of the times, this petering out just means I’ve come to a scene that I haven’t completed in my head. Happens a lot, and it just means I need to step away from the keyboard and let it play out in my head before committing it to paper.

Sometimes, I just think that the 850 pace is a little hard for me to maintain because I tell myself ‘OK—you gotta sit down and put 850 words on the screen and you gotta do it now!’ and the pressure gets to me. When I’m not focusing on the fact that this whole book was to be done by this Friday (hint: nope), the words come easy. When I look at the calendar and see where I am in the story as opposed to what day of the month it is, then it becomes hard. I’m supposed to be writing the stirring climax, but I haven’t even gotten to the first sex scene…and I really want to write that scene!

I’m pushing back the deadline to end of June. Gives me thirty-one more days to get it done and get back on track. Since I don’t really have the time for a deep line-by-line editing that I know this book needs (and I know who could do it, but they couldn’t do it in my time frame), I’m going to have to try to be as diligent as I can with the writing now. I know you’re not supposed to edit as you write. I have to get this book done and out there before August 28^th for reasons.

Once, someone asked me what sort of advice I wish I had before I started writing at the semi-pro level. This is the advice I wish I had: if you’re not having fun, you’re not really writing. This book was meant to be my foray into horror. So far, the only horror I’m having is not meeting my first deadline. I’m going to get this book done, but it’s going to be by the skin of my teeth. Whether or not I have any pride in this remains to be seen.

Want to help? I need coffee. Click on the coffee picture on the right-hand side of the screen and donate a buck or two so that I can stave off sleep for one more day. If coffee is not your thing, then check out the books written by dear friends and help support them.

I wish you all good luck, and now I must poison a twenty-year-old woman to get the two lovers together.

For the book, of course.