I have a problem…

Yes, I have a problem.

I’ve noticed this problem occurring now during all 7 of the last novels I’ve written, and now it’s happening with this one too!

I am currently “deep” in the first draft of Demon at Devil’s Deep, the fourth book in The Legacy of Lucky Logan series. And it’s been going pretty well overall. It’s most definitely been going better than both book 2 and book 3’s drafts… mostly because this book does not include a heist (HOLY COW, I love heists but they are DIFFICULT to pull off, at least for me!) and because I learned my lesson from book 3 and vowed to NOT plot this one very thoroughly.

I left this one real, REAL open.

In fact, when I started book 4, I only knew 1) the opening scene 2) the main objective 3) one other main thing that had to happen before the end of the book.

Everything else was… unknown. Yes, it was a bit nerve-wracking.

Sure, I entirely pantsed book 1, easy peasy. But it was a book 1. THIS is a BOOK 4.

There are so many moving pieces in this series now I had to create a web diagram to sort out everything for my own brain! I had to untangle loyalties and relations so I wouldn’t forget who was with who and who wanted what before the end of this novel.

So needless to say, it’s a bit trickier to entirely Write Into the Dark when that’s the case.

NEVERTHELESS, I persevered. Because with this series, over-plotting is far, FAR more detrimental to progress than fully winging it. So I’ve been fully winging it.

And it’s actually working quite well. EXCEPT THEN… enter… my PROBLEM.

And my problem is this:

You see, it seems every time I hit the midpoint in a novel draft… all of a sudden my brain thinks “ZOMG!!! YOU’RE ALMOST DONE WITH THIS BOOK! IF YOU JUST OBSESS ABOUT IT AND GO ALL-IN AND SPEND EVERY SPARE WAKING MOMENT WRITING, YOU’LL HAVE THIS THING KNOCKED OUT IN A WEEK!”

Except the catch is… being HALFWAY done with a novel draft is NOT REALLY being “almost done” with a novel draft. -_- Not at ALL. If the book is going to be 100,000 words, which book 4 is likely going to be right about that, then being HALFWAY done means you still basically have a whole ‘nother novel to write on the back-end! (Going by the standard length definition of a novel, which is 50k words.)

Meaning… my brain gets LOCKED IN to this writing obsession way, WAY too early, lol. And I end up going on some half-crazed writing-obsessed bender, whereupon I pretty much ignore most other things in life, and spend all the time I’m NOT writing WISHING I was writing, and every now and then I’ll sort of snap out of it and be like, “Oh geez. I now have ALL THESE THINGS piled up on my plate I really need to deal with. Whyyyyyy did I think I was almost done with that book again? It’s going to be MONTHS before I can finish it! I don’t want to live like this for months!!!!” *cries author tears*

And that is where I am right now. Lol. Perhaps, if I was able to write full-time, this too-early obsession wouldn’t be so bad. I could 1000% dive in and focus nonstop for a few weeks straight and VOOILA! I have a finished novel in record time.

But I cannot currently write full time. I cannot AFFORD to be this obsessed this far from the actual end.

It’s painful, to be honest. The urge to write is so bad it fogs up everything else. SIGH.

So. Here is my note to self, in the form of a blog post: CHILL OUT!!! 😛 I already know that no matter how hard I try, there is NO WAY I’m going to make my December pre-order date for book 4 (very sorry to the 3 of you who pre-ordered it!!). 🙁 I’m just not.

There was too much going on at the beginning of this year, and it derailed my book-in-a-year plans by just enough to make me miss it. (That thing was running my first ever Kickstarter campaign, btw, which went amazingly well and far beyond my expectations, so I don’t regret it.)

ALSO, considering I’m FIRING Jeff Bezos, aka Amazon (see my upcoming newsletter for more on that) from my author life in general soon enough, missing the pre-order doesn’t even really matter.

And NOT having that pre-order date looming over my head means I have a bit more breathing room, which means I have time to do OTHER things too, like write a short story for an anthology and/or start the reincarnation of my romantic fantasy series at long last! (Yes, I CAN write two books at once…) (Yes, this IS entirely because of Rings of Power and House of the Dragon both being out right now…)

This is NOT to say that Demon at Devil’s Deep will not be released for ages, not at all. I fully anticipate it easily being ready to go live January or February of 2023. Which is still pretty dang good considering I spent 3 months of the year fully focused on my Kickstarter campaign and am currently co-running another one right now as I type, and this book 4 is going to weigh in at 100k (+20k possibly) words.

That’s still a lot of words in a short timeframe, esp for someone who is not able to write full time.

SO! I’m going to CHILL OUT. And not be so OBSESSED with my draft… or try my hardest not to be, lol. Fall is my favorite time of year, after all, and I’d like to be present in life for all the other amazing things going on! Like my incredible son, and my wonderful hubby, and my other family and friends with whom we have many fun plans coming up in the next few months. YAY!!!

*deep breath* I can do this!!!! Lolol.

How about you, fellow authors? Do you have this problem too? And what about you, dear readers? Have you noticed a certain point within novels that you seem to get really hooked or obsessed with them? (Or is it always just the whole thing you’re obsessed with? Lol.)

Lemme know in the comments!

And PS, if you’d like to go check out my current co-Kickstarter campaign, it has BLOWN past all of our expectations so far, and we are SO excited for it! If you’re into fall/spooky season/Halloween, you won’t want to miss it! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/audreyhughey/darkest-of-dreams-a-cryptid-horror-anthology