Last Sunday, I posted about how much trouble I was having starting my Weird Oz Story (real title to be determined). Well, I’m still not exactly burning rubber but I think I am beginning to build momentum. I think it’s clear that this is just going to be one of those stories that takes a little longer, for whatever reason.
That happens. Every story is different. BLOOD WILL TELL just poured out of me in about a month. THE BARD’S GIFT took about six months to write. Most stories fall somewhere in the middle. Just because one story is slow coming out doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong. Some stories are just like that. And you can’t really rush the ones that want to be slow and steady.
Some, like BLOOD WILL TELL, appear fully formed like Athena in my head and all I have to do is open the floodgates and let them out. That’s a wild roller coaster ride when it happens, but they’re not all that way. Sometimes I just have to let a story take a little more time.
It also doesn’t mean that I should worry about my productivity. It bears remembering that this is actually my third project for this year–so far, not counting revisions.
- I completed MAGIC AND POWER (likely to be retitled DESERT ROSE) earlier this year. That’s the one that was supposed to be only a novelette or novella, but turned out at 85,000 words.
- I completed a rewrite of one of my earliest novels, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. It still needs work, of course, but that’s what revisions are for.
- And now I’m working on Weird Oz.
Well, that’s still pretty darn good for a single year, especially when you add a revision/partial rewrite of MAGE STORM and the revisions to BLOOD IS THICKER to get it ready for launch next month.
Note: A new chapter of BLOOD IS THICKER is now available on wattpad (or you could just buy the whole thing.)
Meredith Mansfield, Author 
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