WOTY

Holy Moley, has it really been over a month since my last post??  The good news is that I have my laptop back.  And I've been writing, too.  Except that things took a nosedive over the holidays.  Not in general or anything, just in the writing dept.  Nothing like having the entire family (eight kids, assorted in-laws and grandkids) all together this year to throw plans out of whack.

But that's okay.  I'm here now, and in honor of my first post of the year (as well as my first ROW post of the new round.  That's right, people.  I'm still here to hang with my favorite writers!) I'll be doing a Word of the Year post- which I freely admit to stealing from Kait Nolan last year.

Last year my word of the year was DETERMINATION.  It was a word that got me through Aeris and a couple of teeny side projects.  It got me through multiple child sicknesses, a nasty bout of teething (my youngest got 6 teeth at once!) and 10 days of pushing through so hard to finish.  It was a word I needed last year, and I'm happy with that choice.

This year, my WOTY will be Scrumptious Pretty Fighting!(A shout out to my Kdramas) FEARLESS.
This year, I'm going to try new things.  I'm going to push my creativity to the limit.  I'm going to experiment with pricing and genre and write whatever the hell I feel like writing.  I'm tired of playing it safe and feeling like I have to write a certain way "to make people love me".

Where did this come from?  Well, it's no secret I love my readers.  Just ask the super fans that all received free copies of Aeris.  And since most of them loved the second book, I've been trying to make the third book even better (which is a good personal goal).  The problem is, I've let myself get so caught up in what the fans want that I forgot to look for what I want.  I have two examples.

Luka's storyline has some elements this time around that won't please everyone.  Most of it is stuff that will KICK ASS, because he is such an awesome character, but he's also going to make some big mistakes this time around, too.  He's not perfect.  I've had such a struggle writing that, though, because every time I go to make the big choices, I wonder if it will anger the readers.  Not a good thing to second guess every plot point when you're a writer.

The second is Zyander.  Once again, to my UTTER FRUSTRATION, I think I'm going to have to ditch his story line and start over.  The problem is that unlike Nikka, who is very action oriented, Zyan is a thinker and tends to mull over every little fact before he makes a decision.  This does not make for a fast paced storyline.  The rewriting has needed to happen for a while, but the idea that I might disappoint fans by taking longer to write this book has kept me from doing what I need to do.

So, my WOTY will be FEARLESS and I will do what needs to be done this year, consequences be damned.  That sounds more dramatic than it actually is. hahaha

So, goals for this ROW: Go back to my outline.  Meaning, rewrite some elements of Zyan's story line and make the appropriate changes to the manuscript.  Two, be better about updating my blog.  And Three, continue my side project writing of two days a week.

Oh, for those who asked, if you actually want the other name I write under, send me an email at katecauthor@gmail.com and I'll send it to you.  I've gotten a couple of requests, so I thought I'd share that.  It's NOT YA fantasy, though.

Good luck to all my fellow ROWers in the New Year and Happy Reading!