Yaaaay, yes I did! I wrote a couple paragraphs for Blood Maiden, rewriting the start of an old scene for this festival ARC. It’s right before they arrive and with this new version I get a bit more space to actually introduce things, describe things properly so the setting comes alive and setup upcoming events. This time I’m not forgetting the elementals which come along on this trip and there’s a new minor character.

Francis is an old family friend of Sagani’s. Ze doesn’t have any contact with hir family at the moment and so this contact could give some opportunities to add in a couple more small background things for hir. He (not sure about pronouns yet but am thinking he’ll use he and maybe a second set of pronouns like ey/em or xe/xem. I’ll have to figure out his gender but so far he’s gender-nonconforming. He’s the owner of the hotel Sagani, Mael, and Araceli are staying at.

So so far I’m just getting myself, the characters and the reader a little more aquanted with the new setting. I’ll be able to flex my description and exposition skills (lol XD) and, this way, ease into the writing thing again.

I’ll still be taking things one step at a time. No rush, no stress. Thing is, this is also a way that usually helps me in more than one day way. Simply settling down in my seat, laptop at hand, I let my mind drift into the scene I want to write. No broad and overarching plans, but zooming in on one place, one character, one thought. Start there and as it all starts to live, things will expand naturally. I add details bit by bit, coming back to former paragraphs I just wrote when I see I forgot something, writing in layers. Usually when I take this approach, a scene I’d been stuck on starts working. Sometimes something just isn’t working and deep diving into a moment of the scene can offer new insights.

Not sure if all of that made as much sense as I’d hoped but, what’s important is, we all have our own pacing. It’s not just a thing for books, it’s also a thing for writers. We need to pace ourselves, have breaks, and pick a dynamic pacing. No endless rushing to meet immense wordcount goals. Sometimes things go slow, sometimes you breeze through, every moment is different.

So that’s what I’m doing, I guess. Finding a new pace.