I realized this week that it’s been a long time since I’ve actually posted something about what I’m writing. It’s partly because I’ve become slightly allergic to talking very much about a project while it’s in progress. Talking about it too much can actually stunt my progress: the moment I tell somebody what I’m doing, I feel like I’ve set some mental standard or expectation that it needs to live up to, which piles on the pressure. I’ve probably taken being close-mouthed to the opposite extreme somewhat, and I don’t want to make a superstition or a self-fulfilling prophecy out of it (hence this post), but in general, keeping relatively quiet about works-in-progress does work better for me.
Anyway. I never feel like I’ve accomplished very much in a year (or almost eight months, in this case) unless I complete a major project; but when I look back at what I’ve actually done in 2022 and put all the little pieces together into a list it’s a pretty decent amount of work. Since January, I’ve…
• Revised and published The American Pony!
• Finished the first draft and first edits on my children’s historical fantasy The Summer Country. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you may remember that title, and may have wondered what happened to it. Truth be told, I unpublished most of my posts about unfinished or badly stalled projects a while ago, for various reasons. However, I did finish this one and am quite happy with it. I do not know exactly what route to publication I’ll be taking with it yet, and it needs a few revisions, so I’ve laid it aside for a little rest before progressing any further.
• Added a few…a very few…pages to the first draft of my Ruritanian novel (which now has a working title: The City of the Great King); and continue to add to my notes/outline for it. This is basically a secondary project at the moment: not completely active, but not abandoned.
• Begun working again on the first draft of my next Western mystery, Last Ride at the Lazy G. I’ve been rewriting the opening chapters I drafted last year to get myself back into the swing of the story, and plan to stick with this as my primary project until I get that first draft done.
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In other news, my summer reading list for this year has been knocking it out of the park (five stars apiece for Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf, The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett, Heroes Without Glory by Jack Schaefer, and a spur-of-the-moment read that wasn’t on my list, Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson), and I’m looking forward to starting my seasonal farm job again soon and doing an author table at an upcoming library event!
