I finished my first novel (Drowning Practice) in 2005, before I got pregnant with Thumper. I had the extreme good fortune to spend my first month of that pregnancy at Ragdale, where I had nothing to do but write all day and take naps. I started my second novel (Adverse Possession) at Ragdale, worked on it steadily through that first pregnancy, and then set it aside until Thumper was 18 months old and I was ready to leave him with Billy for a few hours at a time. (He was probably ready sooner, but I have a hard time being away from my babies when they’re babies.)

Drowning Practice is in the Drawer. Adverse Possession is in a weird limbo that I can’t talk about here just yet (no, not the good kind of limbo. No, not the “abandon hope, all ye who etc etc” kind of limbo, either. I’ll tell all when professionalism allows).

Those of you who’ve been around here a while may remember I started the next novel, Cold Black Stars (working title) last year. I got all of a chapter into it and had to set it aside because Adverse Possession wanted more revising. Those revisions led to revisions, as is often the case, and I ended up working on AP right up until Ladybug was born.

(I’m starting to get seriously tired of calling my kids Thumper and Ladybug online, but I don’t want to use their real names. Eh.)

Adverse Possession is now written and revised to the best of my (current) abilities. If the book and I make it out of that limbo it will be because someone else has an opinion about it, which will likely lead to more revisions, and I welcome that. But for now, Adverse Possession is off my desk. I find myself in the unfamiliar position of being ready to dive into the next book, but not having had much at all by way of time to do just that. I’ve spent the past six months thinking in and around Cold Black Stars in much the same way that I would have been writing in and around it, had my life not been trapped beneath the very sweet and welcome weight of a baby. And a funny thing’s been happening.

I’ve found my process is still my process, even if it’s not on paper (er…screen). I write blind, which is to say that I don’t plan ahead much at all. I sit down to write and I just write. I follow whatever comes out. I don’t think too much, not with my rational brain anyway. If I allow myself to think in first draft, it all goes dead on me. So I have to trick myself to turn that editor brain off, write in a sort of trance. It’s how I do my best work, and when it’s going well–when I’m really plugged in–it’s the very best feeling in the world. Or in my world, anyway. (Insert all appropriate noises about something to do with my kids being truly the best feeling in the world.) (Sorry, kids. I love you. I do. It must suck to have a writer as a mother, sometimes. I try to be as present as possible with you guys, but you know I’m always partially stuck in some other world, don’t you?) This kind of writing leads to wonderful surprises, but it also leads to a lot of rewriting. Dead ends, etc. For each of my 300-or-so pg manuscripts, I’ve thrown out easily twice that many pages. And then revised, and revised, and revised once I reached the end of that first draft. Drowning Practice took ten drafts. Adverse Possession has been through five and likely wants at least one more. It’s messy work. Impractical. But it’s how I work best.

Well, I haven’t been able to sit down and write, to let my fingers go and follow whatever comes. Rather than bang my head against the wall or down unholy quantities of Rescue Remedy, I started letting myself play around in the story in my head. I’ve dreamed my way through my original ideas for it, built on some, discarded most. Gone down false paths and doubled back. Gotten to know my characters, have heard their voices. I know what the ground feels like, what they smell when they step out of their houses. I know what they want. I know what they’re afraid of. I know a good deal of what they’re going to do and what is going to be done to them from where the novel will open up to around about the middle. I have some suspicions about how it will all end, though I’m trying not to cast my gaze that far forward, intentionally keeping it foggy.

In short, I’ve already written and discarded a few hundred pages in my head. It doesn’t feel like I’m spending the juice of the story at all. It feels like writing. I won’t be surprised if when I do get time to sit and write again, it goes more smoothly than the first two books and needs fewer drafts. Nor will I be surprised if it still takes many tossed pages and many, many drafts. We’ll see. And I think we’ll see soon! The baby is settling in to a predictable nighttime pattern. I think I can start writing outside of my head again soon. Maybe even this week. I can’t wait.