KD Field

I don’t know if I’m the only writer that feels this way, but I am intimately familiar with my personal quirks and process. When I am writing a book it goes something like this.

1. The idea. OMG! I am in love with it. I know just what the story will be. I have the ending. It will be amazing!
2. I start writing.
3. Then doom scrolling news or social media.
4. Shaking that off – maybe another cup of coffee.
5. Uff! My neck hurts from all this writing. Maybe I just need a hot bath.
6. Okay! Stop it, Kelli. Let’s get serious. You have this great story to tell. So I keep going…
7. Finally, I have a finished 1st draft of the manuscript. AND I HATE IT!!! It is crap! Total crap! It was nothing like I thought it was going to be. The characters seem flat. The dialogue is wooden. WHY did I bother with this?
8. Let the Amish shunning begin. I will now avoid my own laptop containing this book I hate. It mocks me. It will sit across the room from me and I will allow my laptop to run out of battery to quell it’s voice. But that doesn’t work. I need to use it to do some of my monthly banking. But then, it will go back into my writing desk purgatory. I don’t even want to look at it.
9. I have officially entered the trough. It’s a cold bleak place. There is no warmth there. The book is ice cold and so is my heart in regards to it.
10. Then, Jeff will do the unthinkable. He will ask how the book is coming. Mother Fu@*#%r! Does he not understand that I don’t want to even think about this book? Let along talk about it, even in the abstract. I want to pretend it doesn’t exist. I have more pressing matters on my mind. Perhaps eradicating the dust behind the headboard in our room. Maybe even the one in the guest room. Color coding my shoes. Cleaning the grout in the shower with a toothbrush. Categorizing the pickles and olives in the fridge by jar size and region. All this while wearing the same pajamas for days on end. Am I a little depressed about the book during this phase? Duh! DO NOT bring up something as mundane as ‘How’s the book coming?’. Does he have a deathwish?
11. A month goes by. Then two. One day I need to check my email on the laptop. I need to find an old document. Scanning through my files – Voila! – there is the hated manuscript. The one I loathe. But then, something happens.Hmm… Maybe I should take a look. Is it as bad as I remember? It seems my subconscious mind had been at work. I have some ideas to make the story less crap. The dialogue more dialogue-y. So I open up the file and I begin to read it, again. Who wrote this nonsense? I think. Was she drunk? But No! I can make it better. So I do.
12. Jeff reads the first second draft. And he reads so fucking slow I want to murder him. ‘Are you done yet?’ I ask, peeking through the crack in his office door. ‘Get out!’ he directs. So I do. Eating a pint of ice cream in the meantime. Perhaps a package of sin-gluten cookies. And I wait.
13. I wait some more…
14. And some more…
15. Finally, he emerges like a groundhog from his den. The look on his face says winter is going nowhere. He has notes, and I take each one on board. Jeff has great instincts about everything. People especially. But he has excellent instincts with a story. The hook. The flow. The arc. The ending. He’s on the spectrum. He sees through the bullshit and has no filter. I have learned to be less precious about it all. He isn’t telling me this stuff to be hurtful. He wants it to be my best work. And what he tells me is usually something I already know. Sometimes I don’t know how to solve it, but I know it nonetheless. For the second in the current series, Jeff got really frustrated with me after I took an online creative writing course. ‘This manuscript isn’t in your voice. It doesn’t even sound like you. Even the sentence structure isn’t right. You write in short, punchy sentences. Like being shot by bullets.’ He saw my face. ‘In a good way.’ I knew what he meant. I was trying to follow the rules from the course. But I am a terrible rule follower. The results were not my voice nor my best work. I had to start again.
16. Back to the drawing board. I write. I reshuffle the narrative. Chapters move from the beginning to the middle. New characters emerge. Essential characters to the story.
17. I write.
18. I cry.
19. I write.
20. I take long walks.
21. Finally, I have something. The emotion is there. The foreshadowing is right. The tie-in to the previous book, and the characters are taking shape. I have found the voice. The emotion. The story arc.
22. I change out of my pajamas.
23. I get up in the middle of the night and write.
24. I put on a little lipstick and comb my hair.
25. I stop talking in the middle of a restaurant and take notes of inspiration on my phone. I stretch to hear other people talking. There might be dialogue I can use.
26. I grab snippets from things people say on social media, movies or television and leave myself voice notes.
27. I write some more.
28. Draft 34 of the manuscript is complete.
29. Jeff reads it again. He has just a few small notes. It’s mostly done.
30. Time for beta readers. But I can’t wait for their feedback. Now I am in love with the story. With the characters I have fought so hard to find and whose stories I have dug deep to discover. But I have some other things I want to change. The chocolate sprinkles. Stuff to tweek. We’re almost there.
31. The real editing comes next. But I’m no longer afraid.
32. I can’t wait for people to hold the book in their hands to read the story and tell me what they think.

I’m on #28 for the next book in the Camino Family Trilogy. While I wait on beta reader feedback I will keep polishing. But it’s time to pick up an old story I began two years ago. I’ll finish The Baker of El Mujander before Book 3 of the trilogy. Some of you read the first 50 pages and sent me your invaluable feedback. Thank you. The baker and his wife, Loly, are nagging at me to tell their story. But, I need a day or two to enjoy the feeling at making it to #28 for The Weight of Fearsome Things. Before I begin this writing rollercoaster