Kate's Blog

Trusting the process

So it is onto the next thing, which is due in March, and as usual I am experiencing my maybe-I-should-scrap-it-all-and-write-something-else panic, which always seems to hit around 15k into the story. Fortunately (or unfortunately, perhaps), this happens with nearly every book and so I was ready for it, and managed to talk myself down from the ledge. (My March release, The Undoing of De Luca, was written in a somewhat blind panic after abandoning 15k of the project I'd been working on just 3 weeks before my deadline--however, I love the book and I think it all worked out well, so...)

In any case, I'm starting to trust my process, which I know is an overused phrase and so has lost some of its meaning, but this is what it means for me: trust that even if I don't know what I'm doing NOW, I will later. This book will figure itself out as long as I keep writing, keep thinking, keep trying to dig deeper with these characters. All rewarding yet grueling stuff, but I can be a bit of a control freak sometimes and so at 15k I really like to know where I'm going to be at 20k, or 30k, or the end. And often I don't, and that makes me panic, except this time round I'm trying hard not to, and just trust that I will finish, there will be a light-bulb moment or two, and this book will work out.

I hope.

Labels: writing life

posted by Kate Hewitt at Saturday, January 22, 2011 0 Comments

New things

We had a lovely Christmas at home this year, and after experiencing it I am a full-on 100% advocate for not traveling during Christmas. In past years, for the most part, we have done the mega-schlep and packed presents, suitcases, all the kid and baby gear, and gone to relatives, usually my brother or parents. And it's fun, and crazy, and exhausting, and wonderful, but with four kids, the oldest now on the cusp of her teens (still find that shocking!), I think we might be ready to stay home.

And I have to confess that staying home means I get to sneak in a little no-pressured writing time, as this is technically vacation. So over the holidays I finished the women's fiction I'd been working on for over two years, which was a huge milestone, and I also got a start on my next Presents, currently titled Innocence and Experience. I'm having a little fun with this story, and it's just a tiny bit different in tone than my other Presents, so we'll see what my editor says but so far I like it!

Tomorrow I actually leave for three days for a short break with my husband to the Lake District in England. I'm really looking forward to it--we have not been away alone together since before our 4th was born over two years ago. This is long due!

Happy New Year everybody, and happy reading!

posted by Kate Hewitt at Monday, January 03, 2011 0 Comments