I Have Completed a Draft!

I have posted about how my brain is working SO MUCH BETTER because of some new meds that have been treating my depression. And it's been great! I have been absolutely unable to write a book, or to even concentrate on anything long-term for years. But once I started my new meds I was sitting in my bed, scribbling book ideas and outlines in a notebook for two weeks--filling a brand new notebook full from start to finish.

And then I kinda drafted the book in a month.

Yes! I have completed a draft of my new book, which does not have a title at this time but which I will call RED PLANET for ease of discussion.

I am in love with this book, in the way that you're in love with your first born child. And I think it's because it took so dang long for me to get back into a place where I could do it. I had fallen out of love with writing--and now I'm in love with it again!

The draft is an absolute mess, so let's just be clear about that.

For starters, I have always been a plotter, and on this book I started with an outline but 20,000 words in I decided to throw in a big twist. You know the big twist that happens at the very very end of Variant? I was going to pull another one of those at the end of RED PLANET, but when I got to the 20k mark I just thought "You know what? Let's just do it now." And thus the outline was completely out the window.

So I'm doing revisions now and realizing that, when I'm not working off an outline I just make up whatever-the-crap-I-want nonsense and shove it in the story. And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. It's especially in a problem in a book like this which takes place on Mars in the future, because: science. I did not do my research before writing this book and am now having to look up stuff. Like what is "smart matter"? It's a thing I found in a list of possible future inventions, so hey! They now are using smart matter!

But it's a lot of fun. I haven't been in a character's head in so long, and I love it!

Also, I used to always joke with my wife that I didn't know what I used to think about before I wrote books--because when you're writing a book you're always living in that book. And that is totally back! I couldn't get to sleep last night because I kept thinking about my characters.

All of this to say, I'm really liking this book and I'm looking forward to a day in the vast distant future when you will get to read it. Who knows when or how.