2022 started off difficult for me and my family. My sibling ended up in the hospital in late January and is currently still there. Due to this, writing was the last thing I could place my focus on.
April has been a reawakening month for my writing though. In early March I had an idea spark for a new novel. Something about it got me excited unlike the previous works-in-progress have. I had a couple of weeks here and there where the family situation was heavy and I lost focus on the project but come April, something ignited in me to write again.
Perhaps it’s that my sibling is doing better and out of the worst of it that I felt I could take a breath and regain some ‘me’ time.
April has been the month for all the writing. After three months of quiet on the Medium platform, I returned and have been publishing articles. I also came back to my personal blog here and started updating again.
And last, I’ve been writing my new novel.
My writing journey and I have been through a lot in the last five-plus years. We’ve paraded around various genres and gotten a taste of each one till landing on a few. Then life proceeded to do its thing and I ended up changing–as we all do. As I changed, so did my writing and I found myself shifting genres.
In the past, I’ve written dystopian, sci-fi, contemporary romance, romantic comedies, and young adult. Those projects are still in my heart and I may reunite with them again in the future but the timing isn’t yet right for them.
Project Colors WIP
Project Colors is my current manuscript that I’m working on and it’s so far a contemporary drama with a romance and suspense subplot. This is new for me. I’ve never written suspense. I’ve read some suspenseful romances from different authors but never thought I’d go that route. I’m still not entirely sure if I am. See, this story is one of the first I’ve gone into blindly. I’m not normally a write by the seat of my pants writer. I’ve always had a theme and outline. Something about this story came to me suddenly after seeing an image that brought a whole scene to life. From there, I just started writing and the next thing I knew, I had the first fifteen pages of the book.
Currently, it’s the end of April and I have a total of 17,749 words in the project. I’m about to start chapter six. Two of my writer friends are critique partners and I recently sent them the first two chapters of the manuscript. Feedback was encouraging and it was the go-ahead I needed to continue writing.
Next week, I'm planning a brainstorming session with a close friend who's an author to explore all the ways I can play with this potential suspense element.
Where are you in the writing process? I'd love to know. Comment below or let me know over on Twitter @DesireeMOrtega
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