hanging with my characters

[Meter no longer working and has been removed in this post.]

Last time I posted my progress meter, I was including multiple projects and several deadlines into the mix. I decided that was too confusing (and overwhelming), so I’m taking it in smaller chunks now. That change actually makes my meter look like I haven’t been doing anything for the past month (it read 24% then, too), but since I had the least done on my current wip (work in progress), I’ve actually done quite a bit of writing. Still not enough. As always, I bemoan that I don’t write faster than I do — and than I used to about a decade ago. But the good news is, the meter will move steadily higher over the course of the summer.

What I’m enjoying most about this book is that the characters are hanging around in my head as I drift off to sleep at bedtime. That makes the next day start off well because my subconscious “plays” with ideas while I sleep, making it easier to shift into writing mode come morning. MW is an historical romance, the first of a two-book series about sisters (twins, though not identical). I cut my novelist teeth on historical romances — writing 27 of them before I wrote my first contemporary — and so there is a level of familiarity and comfort to this project.

Creating and peopling a town is a fun but time consuming part of writing a novel of this type. A lot of planning has to go into it, especially when the town must last for more than one book. I’ve done that for my Hart’s Crossing novella series (Legacy Lane and Veterans Way already out; two more to write), and now I’m doing it for these two historicals. There is a town map to draw and there are house plans to sketch and there is a character table to use to keep track of names used and who owns what business.

And now, since this is a short writing day due to (1) my work out at the fitness center; (2) a nail appointment; (3) a hair appointment; and (4) a chiropractor appointment, I’d best get to writing about one of the twins.

-rlh-