catching up

I feel like I've just emerged from a long sleep. Or maybe surfaced from a deep underwater dive is a better metaphor. Why? Because I just finished writing a new, as-yet-unnamed, novel. Whee!

I started writing this story back in July, 2011. I had lots of time in the summer, so the first 40,000 words went down pretty fast. But then my day job kicked in and my writing time was relegated to the weekends. I've also found that I don't write well from Thanksgiving till about mid-January. I can write short, slice-of-life stories then, but I just can't stay focused on a large work with all the festivities. "Callie's story" (as it is named on my computer) got set aside and the most I did was pick at it now and again.

That's the problem when people ask me, "How long does it take for you to write a novel?" If I were to actually log my time in front of the keyboard over the past ten months, I'd have to say two to three weeks of 24/7 days. Break it out into 40-hr weeks and the time grows to 8-12 weeks. But because I write on the weekends or at night, or when I'm waiting in the doctor's office, only grabbing a half an hour here or a four-hour stint there, that means I spend 10 months from the start to the end of the first draft.

It didn't help that I tried a new genre with this story. Don't worry, it's still erotic romance with a BDSM twist. I have too much fun with those scenes to stop writing them!

No, what's different is that this erotic romance is couched inside a murder-mystery - and that's new for me. I loved reading Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt when I was a teenager and their mysteries always kept me enthralled. I  tried before to write one and got halfway through before wrote myself into a corner I still haven't gotten out of. One of these days I'll get back to it and find the way out for the hero and heroine.

Now this manuscript is off for editing...and I'm coming up for air. The last of the trees are *just* starting to bud here and I'm thinking tomorrow will be a good day to get myself into the garden and plant a few things -- now that I've remembered the world has kept spinning while I was otherwise engaged.

Play safe,
Diana
PS. I'm playing around with covers. Once I get a few I like, I'll post them here and you-all can vote on your favorite. Yes, this one will be self-pubbed. :)