Keeping the Wheel Turning

While I don’t get very political here, I’ve not made a secret that my lean is liberal.  So it’s no surprise that I’ve been none too thrilled with things over the past few days.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve got work to do.  I can’t let any sort of, “things are horrible” stop me.  Because, when you come down to it, writing novels is an act of endurance.  I’m not saying you have to do words every day or you’re a failure (and I loathe that sort of purity test thinking) but the work doesn’t get done unless you keep coming back to it.

And the work needs to get done.  If I’d ascribe any sort of “this is what makes you a writer” test, it’s that for you, the work needs to get done.  That you feel it deep in your marrow.  You feel that you have to do it or you just won’t live.

That doesn’t mean you don’t get stuck, that you don’t let the work simmer and percolate.  That doesn’t mean it doesn’t take a long time. The work takes what it takes.  But you have to keep coming back to it.  You keep the wheel turning.

So, I feel like I’ve been rather heavy this whole entry, so some levity.  If you’ve read some of the interviews I’ve done for Import of Intrigue, you’ve probably seen that I answer the “how do you keep in all straight?” question with “spreadsheets and timelines”.  Re-reading one of those made me think about the timing of events in my grander scheme, so I went to check it in the timeline, to see when it needed to happen.   And I realized it had to happen in the middle of Lady Henterman’s Wardrobe.  So, I needed to integrate it into the plot of that book.  As I looked over how I needed to do that, I realized, “If I put it here, amid this major sequence, it actually makes that main plot aspect work better.”

So I’m glad I double-checked that.

Right now the wheel turning means Import of Intrigue is out there and on top.  I’ve been pretty pleased with the reception it’s gotten, especially this review from Bibliotropic, which I feel really nails what I was going for with this book.

All right, all of you: back in the word mines.  You’ve got work to do.