Book three, done!
Please excuse the giant header photo - one day, when I’m more technically proficient, I’ll figure out how to make it smaller. But today is not that day.
Anyway, the matter at hand - draft one of book three is DONE. I can’t quite believe I’m writing that, but here we are. Somehow.
Book three was bought at the first time as book two, which means it wasn’t actually written yet. This is the first time I’ve ever written a book to contract, so I was a little daunted at the prospect - daunted at the idea of having to meet a tight deadline (though I’m admittedly someone that loves deadlines and will move mountains to make them), daunted at the idea of agreeing a premise and then having to turn that exact thing in. Daunted just because it was something I’d never done before.
I’m a meticulous planner in my writing, so I was only too happy to have to come up with a full plot ahead of writing an entire book that the whole team would agree on. This took a little while, but it was immensely helpful in that I knew exactly what was going to happen and could just put pen to paper, so to speak. I did a research visit to Cinema City in Norwich because my book primarily takes place in an independent movie theatre, so I could get the technical bits right and better understand the layout of such a building.
Though I knew what was going to happen in this book, writing it was a strain at times. This was because about halfway through, I became a full-time writer. I know, I know - but Molly, shouldn’t this shedding of other workish responsibilities make you more productive?! Well, yes. Technically. But it was a huge adjustment, going from a lifetime of having to squirrel away hours to write to suddenly having all day. I felt a lot of pressure to be productive, and so I pushed myself to the max to write, write, write, so that by the end of the first week, I had written 10k words. Amazing, yes, but I felt so burnt out and exhausted by the end, and knew I’d have to change my routine.
I got out of my studio and wrote in the cafe of the Norwich Cathedral, put less pressure on myself, and spent more time planning each scene carefully before writing - all this helped. And now here we are, and I’ve finished an 80k-word first draft. Like any first draft, it needs a lot of work and I have a lot of questions for my editor, but ultimately I’m really happy with it and feel like I’ve taken it as far as I can at this point. Now, it just needs a second opinion!
It’s got all the twinges of magic, sarcasm, pop culture and self-doubt you would expect from me, but with a lot more romance on the cards, which was really fun to write. Romance is my favourite thing to read, so I love being able to put it in my own books, too.
That’s pretty much all I can say for now, but more details will come soon, I’m sure. I’m just so stoked to be able to say I’ve got this silly little book down on paper - I’ve had these characters in my head for years (just about ten, to be less than exact), so I’m really excited to get them out in the world.