Writing Two Books At Once and Finally Some Progress

In July I wrote here about shelving a book.

And I did. Sort of.

Because apparently, I’m not very good at leaving things alone .

I put it away, came back to it, pulled out the framework, and tried to “fix” it. Then recreate it. Then figure out what exactly had gone wrong in the first place. (I hate not knowing why...aarghh)

None of my strategies was particularly successful. But I needed to get moving somehow. So I went back to The Language of Love Chronicles. And before you ask why I called the series that, I have no good answer.

It was from that crazy time when I was impatient and excited to publish my first book, a name had to be chosen, decisions had to be made, and apparently The Language of Love Chronicles was what I came up with.

We all have things from our past we have to live with.

Anyway. This time, I actually liked where it was going.

I wrote Draft 1 of the 3rd book in the series in August. I took September completely off from writing, which I think I needed more than I realised. And now I’m back, working through Draft 2.

I’m already about a third of the way through it. And I finally have a version of the book that I actually like. Not a version I am trying to convince myself to like or one where I keep telling myself, maybe it’ll work once I fix this bit.

Of course, now I have another problem.

I’m impatient.

I want to finish Draft 2, get through Draft 3 properly, and publish it before I reach that strange stage where I’ve read the manuscript so many times that the words stop meaning anything. I think the term is “manuscript blindness”.

You know that point when you read a sentence and think it’s perfectly fine because you know what it is supposed to say. An entire word could be missing but your brain will politely insert it for you. That's when strange things happen. Your page starts reading the version in your head and you can't see it.

I would very much like to publish this book before I get there. Fingers crossed that I'm not already there.

But this post isn’t really just a progress update. It’s to announce that I accidentally stumbled onto a new writing strategy, which sounds slightly ridiculous.

I’ve been writing two books at the same time. Yes...TWO!!!

Not planning one while writing another. Actually working on two.

One is the book I shelved (yawn)—the one I’m still, very unsuccessfully, trying to rebuild. And the other is this one.

Its placeholder title is The One Thing She Didn’t Plan.

I say placeholder because I’m almost certain I’m going to change it.

This is Taara’s story.

If you’ve followed my other books, the name may already mean something to you. I’ve also moved most of the story away from Coorg. That surprised me a little because Coorg was so much about what I wanted this series to be about. This time, though, I didn’t want the setting to do all the emotional work for me.

Coorg is still there. Just not in the way I originally imagined.

But who knows? Maybe Draft 3 will see me adding in more tidbits about my roots.

Moving on...I digress very easily when I get started spilling all that's in my head onto paper.

And somehow, the two-book madness is actually helping. If one book starts resisting me, I move to the other. If I’ve been inside one character’s head too long, I start losing perspective, so I jump to the other story for a bit. And on the days I catch myself picking apart every sentence, the other manuscript reminds me that sometimes I just need to stop analysing and write.

I used to think this would be distracting. That I needed to be disciplined enough to pick one project and stay with it until the end.

Finish what you start.

Don’t get distracted by the shiny new idea.

All very sensible advice. Except such tips are only useful if it actually helps you work.

For me, forcing myself to stay with one manuscript when I was completely stuck wasn't making me disciplined. It made me stop writing.

Having another story to work on changed that. So I'm moving. Maybe not in a straight line, but like along a windy road in Coorg.

At this point, I think I care more about keeping myself writing than whether I’m doing it the ‘right’ way.

Some writers outline everything before they begin. Others can stay with one book for months without being tempted by another idea (that's like eating idli everyday, but if you like it....). There are people who draft quickly and edit slowly, write every morning or late at night, track word counts, make playlists, or light candles.

I don’t think I’ve found some magical new process. I’ve just found something that’s making me come back to the page - that's writing two books at once.

So, two books in parallel.

• One that I’m trying to rescue.

• One that suddenly seems to know where it wants to go.

A month away from writing got the second draft moving. There's still a great deal of impatience brewing inside. I don't know if this will become my permanent way of working.

It may completely fall apart by the next blog post.

But for now, I’m writing again. And after spending so much time trying to fix a book that refused to be fixed, it feels like progress.