OKAY! So the news of the week...I finished a new book! It's a contemporary romance which, for now, is called After the Win. It started as a one off, but quickly found itself tying into Too Good. It's set in Detroit amongst upper crust circles, so the characters naturally fit with my beloved Pal and Mason, so I tied it in.
It's about a young woman who wins a massive lotto payout and has to work closely with a grouchy and extremely attractive financial planner. I'm sure you can guess what they get up to. It was fun to get to play with a male MC who is a grump. Most of the guys I've written are fairly sensitive and maybe a little too perfect, so to write a guy who leads with coldness was fresh for me. It's in need of a ton of editing, but I'm happy with how it turned out.
I'm also really happy that I'm starting to get better at manageable word counts by the end of a first draft. This one came in at around 76k. My first book was 140k on first draft. Pretty standard newbie stuff. I described every moment and threw in everything and the kitchen sink. I've also started to slowly introduce some planning into my pantsing, so the process is becoming a little more streamlined. In short, I'm learning!
My main focus in my development as a writer is a firmer grasp on plot and conflict. I get caught up in writing these lovely moments I imagine for the characters that I forget the thing needs to go somewhere. But my rudimentary outlining is starting to correct that. Thinking in terms of what will happen versus solely focused on what's being said is slowly becoming my norm.
Now that it's done, I should edit it. I should keep sending out queries to agents with the first book while editing the second. I really should. But I got a super fun idea for the third book and in true "me" fashion, I started writing it.
In fact, I keep losing my train of thought as I write this post because I'm drifting off into daydreams about this next book. So I'm off to write it. Hopefully I learn even more in the process of this one :)