As Cmdr. Taggart Says...

I'm in the home stretch now. I can see the final chapters so clearly that I can almost taste them. Okay, I may need to work on my imagery here, but you get the point. The last book in my YA Steampunk series is coming to a close...EVER SO SLOWLY!

Its taken a lot to get here. Many tangents that had to be back-tracked. Too many wrong turns to retrace. Closing out a series is difficult. This I knew, but...this last book is such a struggle for some reason.

Perhaps it is because I pre-wrote the synopses for all three books via the publisher's request and so had a hard time just following the characters as they fleshed out.

Maybe my vision changed the deeper I delved into the story so the pre-imagined story line didn't fit anymore?

I am not sure.  I do know that I will not flesh out an entire series so tightly again. I loved knowing where I was going and maybe wrote some scenes ahead of time. That was helpful. I am a die-hard plotter after all. I live for charts and outlines and note cards.

But I also like the freedom of free writing and creative journeys so I need to find a balance there.  It is funny, this realization, that I might do well with some looser parameters and room to play because my critique partner, who is a dyed-in-the-wool pantser, just went to a conference workshop on plotting and is finally starting to embrace that in her process. The timing is cosmic sarcasm...I'm sure of it.

So as I head towards the climax of the story and the series, I will have to find the will to continue to grapple with this story that I have both loved and hated in turns over the past two years.  It is my favorite creation and the most painful to date to produce.

But as my Galaxy Quest Captain would exhort..."Never Give Up! Never Surrender!"

Look for The Tremblers, Book 1 in The Blackburn Chronicles out this fall.

+Raquel Byrnes 

A Word About Blogfests...

I was never a joiner. I used to be the kid on the bleachers with my nose in a book during flag football.  It goes against my grain as a writer to share unfinished work. That being said...I think Blogfests are a great resource for writers.

First of all, it gets the creative juices flowing. Meeting someone else's criteria and word count are part and parcel with a writing career so getting used to the idea is helpful.  I've meet a lot of writers I would not have otherwise come in contact with through blogfests....some as far as Greece, some as near as the next city...all of them push me to be a better writer.

It's fun. I've been told that great writers read voraciously, both inside and outside of their genre. The blogfests I've entered have hosted YA, horror, science fiction, and a host of subgenres I'm just learning about.  Reading the work of other authors and getting feedback on my own is helpful and encouraging.

So take a peek at some of the Blogfests listed in the sidebar to your right.  --->

I don't enter all of them, just the ones that are a fit for what I'm doing at the moment.  You might make some interesting network buddies, or maybe even learn a thing or two.

I hope to see you in the ether...can't wait to read what you've got. Until next time...Go write!

Photograph by MrTopf.