Writing Away

I am doing something new this summer…writing a book on deadline.

This is a new experience for me, and one that I pray I get right. You see as a new author, I have a reputation to earn and protect. And I’m learning all the time.

In an ideal world, I’ll write a chapter a night in June. Then that leaves me July to edit and fine-tune, before I hit my August 15th deadline. My editor is having a baby about August 15th, so I would love to get it turned in a bit early.

Already, I’m having trouble. First,  the kids and I did fun things. Jonathan had a fieldtrip with his preschool. Abigail had a friend over for tea. Then we went to a strawberry field to pick fresh strawberries…Yum! These berries are so sweet and juicy I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to buy strawberries in a store again! Then we went down to Indianapolis so that Eric’s folks could watch the kids while we had a date night. Super important. But I didn’t get any new writing done on Sandhill Dreams.

Saturday was another bust. I opened the file and checked to see that there are only 3500 words written so far. Yikes! Only 46,500 to go. So I’ll edit those, revamp them based on what I learned at my visit to Fort Robinson in April. Ease my way back to 1943.

And then I will write like a madwoman this month. Why? Because I don’t have a choice. I am one of those blessed authors who has a contract and deadline.