I owe you a small confession.

Hey All

My editor expected the completed third draft of the new novel by the end of May. It’s almost the end of June, and it isn’t done. There are still scenes in the final act to edit, and a couple I haven’t even written yet.

For a few days, the setback sat on me like a wet coat. The voice that knows it all took over.

You missed the deadline.
You’re behind.
How will you catch up?

Then, I reread one of the scenes I’d rushed, and I spotted why I was stuck. The suspense was working. The romance was working. But my guy, you know the one, Mr. Handsome Hero was dodging those raw emotions around his backstory. Dude wasn’t getting over that hurdle. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t shove him. My job then became digging deep to find out what he was being all macho about. What was he not addressing?

In the kind of book I write, one main character not arcing isn’t a small problem, it’s the whole problem.

In a Romance With Motive story, the danger, the love, and the self-acceptance are not separate threads I braid together at the end. They run on the same engine. What stands between my characters and both love and survival is that one moment in the mirror. The motive behind the threat and the motive behind the longing turn out to be the same motive that buried the pain in the first place. It has to work on all three dimensions.

As real people, we live our lives with the same duality. We earn every moment of pleasure. We suffer through the angst to get to the rainbow of passion on the other side.

When I rush, I lose that. I get a competent thriller and hot romance, but I also get a character who fails to earn his word count. Tidy. Forgettable. Not the book I promised you, and not the book I’d want to read.

So I’m giving the draft the surgical precision it needs. New target, another month to work out the kinks. Slower than I wanted, but honest. It’s the only way I know how to write these two people.

I’d rather hand you something that keeps you up too late because you have to know, than something I shipped on time and didn’t quite mean. That has been the entire journey since I started working on this novel again.

So, thank you for being the kind of reader who waits for the real thing.

More soon.

Ever missed a deadline?

Hit reply and tell me, were you better for it? Or did it put you even further off your mark? Drop me a line and share your setbacks and your wins.

That’s it from me this month.

P.S.: Full honesty, sometimes I listen to that voice for far too long. Sometimes it helps. Most times it doesn’t. What about you?