Let's just say that this book is turning out to be mighty interesting so far. Watch this reel, and this reel, I made on Instagram for the most vague, yet exciting summary possible, of what this book is about. Then this post, this post, and this post for additional introductions to the story!

If you recall, we talked about my goal of writing four books this year some time ago. If you've just joined, you can see the post I made on Instagram for this goal here!

In my last two emails, we talked about the good parts and not so good parts of the writing process for the first book I wrote this year, which is book one of a duology. I don't remember if I had already said this, but that duology is classified as romantic fantasy.

This trilogy (which will be the next three books I write this year), is classified as romantasy.

Now that I'm writing a book where the romance is the whole point of the story, I'm realizing that it is wildly different than writing a romantic fantasy book where the romance is merely one element among thousands of others.

I’m finding out that it’s different in both good and bad ways.

Good: It’s less intense on my brain. There’s no massive external impeding doom outside the romance. The stakes are lower, slower, and the romance is the focus. I can wax poetic and fill my readers’ hearts with glee.

Bad: The stakes are lower. Since I’m coming from writing a book that had so much at stake that was entirely unrelated to the romance plot, it’s hard to know if I’m executing the stakes right for this novel. It makes me pretty scared. My greatest fear in this author life is writing a book that’s genuinely boring and predictable. It’s also hard to write because of the FMC’s personality. She’s a lot different from me, yet she pretty much is me. A conundrum of familiarity and dissonance.

So far, the MMC of this novel is essentially just...grovelling for the whole book. Honestly? I love this. Because that was exactly my goal for the story. Like...that's exactly my goal for the story.

I'm currently 53k+ words in, and I can't wait to see where the story takes me. I'm currently writing act two of the book, and that's notoriously the longest and most complicated act to write. But, since it's romantasy and not romantic fantasy, I'm a bit more confident about it. I’m trying to be less stressed about it.

Truth be told, I'm still really and truly burnt out from writing the first book of this year. I’m trying to take it more slowly with writing this one, and I’m a little gun shy because of all the snags I ran into with trying to get feedback on the vamp wip novel (+ this one now too). I'm just happy this book is not as complex. Otherwise, my ass would be in trouble.

Next time we chat, I'll share more about my plans and dreams for the publishing order of my books.

Until next time, bestie!