I quit my job in November of 2008. My husband and I were trying to build a family and had suffered several miscarriages. It was a time when I was infinitely aware of the functions of my body and completely preoccupied with all things baby. I was loose at ends that fall, feeling strange in my new role as a stay at home, feeling strange inside my body, that refused to function properly, no matter what I did.
I had written NANOWRIMO a couple of times before, but in 2008 I set to it with a ferocity. I wrote two manuscripts that month, one that was based out of life experiences and the other that sprung wholly from my sense of failure in the department of procreating. Both of the books have potential, I think, although I had not gone back to look at either since. Until this morning, that is.
I've got two other projects in the works, (Shelby and Carmen) but both are intense and filled with emotion, neither of which I am prepared to tackle on a Sunday morning with the girls playing in bubbles in the tub. I'm listening to them, talking, and laughing and making up stories, getting along for a rare moment. I want to let the moment stretch out and last as long as it can, so I am staying out of sight, sitting at my computer. I pulled up the two manuscripts from 2008, just to have something to look at while I wait. I started reading The Barren, and as I went I realized that I remember almost nothing about it. I am reading a novel by someone else. What a bizarre experience. I moved it over to my main writing program, broke it down into chapters and am going to start editing and reworking it now. It will be the next published work, the first after the Alison Hayes series.
I'm waiting for Icara to come back from the editor, and expect to have it out to you later this month. Wish me luck.