And Another On Process

The Remains of the Dead winner: Jessica Burkhart. Email me your address for your prize!

One more contest in today’s post. I’ll pick the winner on Saturday.

Yesterday’s comment trail was very interesting, especially in light of a conversation I’ve been having with another writer friend of mine. We were discussing the common writing refrain that goes something like this:

I think this is true. I’ve written seven complete books now, and let’s not even start on the number of partials. And some books have been like Christmas morning, while others have been more like cleaning up after your entire family comes over for Christmas dinner. The tricks I’ve used to fix one novel in peril don’t even begin to work on the next one. It’s a new challenge every single time. It’s own animal.

So my friend and I had a nice mutual whinge about that for a bit (Australian terminology, Julie!), then we decided that, whingeing aside, it was important. It was important to keep challenging ourselves. And it was okay if every book didn’t come packed in shiny paper and tied with poufy bows. It didn’t mean we’d “lost it.” It didn’t mean we’d bitten off more than we could chew. It just meant that this puzzle was a little bit different, and we needed to take on a different skill to solve it.

Anyone else feel this way? Who here has been sailing along on their writing and suddenly gone — huh, I’m going to need to try something different with this one?