Taking Time To Write @Solsticepublish

The last couple of days I have put marketing of “Quest for the Red Sapphire” down for a bit.  I didn’t work on edits for the sequel, “Sapphire Crucible”.  In loading some files from my Documents file I spied the one titled “Book III.”  I have been so caught up with the other two books that I hadn’t looked at it for a while.  It couldn’t have been that long since I worked on it.  Maybe it was a few weeks or a month, I thought.  When I opened it I saw the last date the file had been saved.  It was November 9th, 2013.  I had gone almost four months without writing anything new on that book.  It blew me away.  I have been so caught up with promotion and production that I never made time to do my favorite thing; writing.  I cleared my schedule and sat down to write.  It had been so long since I worked on it that I had to reread parts to figure out where I was in the story.  I go over some part of the book every night before I fall asleep.  It is the key to my thorough writing.  By going over it in my head over and over, I can find flaws and fix them before I ever type it.  That way I can sit down at the computer and let the story flow through my fingers.  The point in the story where I left off was in between major events and I had to storyboard the sequence to get it right.  Once I was there I set to writing.  It was like I had found an old friend and was catching up.  I hadn’t written for the love of writing in so long that I had forgotten how exhilarating the process can be.  It was a chapter of almost entirely dialogue.  Laying it out properly requires the skills of a choreographer.  Each step must lead seamlessly into the next.  It was slow going at first.  Since I love the work, though, I didn’t mind.  Then I found my groove and the words flowed like water.  The book is nearly complete with perhaps 2 chapters to go.  It was the happiest I have been in a long time.  Promoting and editing are fine and necessary.  They are an important part of the publishing process.  There is no feeling on this earth, however, like finishing a chapter or major section of a book you are writing and sitting back to read your words.  What you have created seems impossible and fills you with immense pride and joy.  I have a great deal of other work to do but I must not forget what brought me here.  It is important to take time to write.