I just got past a major hurdle and am elated, a weight lifted off. For several years, I’ve avoided going back to the fourth book in my Braided Dimensions series, mostly because I was caught up in my newer fantasy sci fi series, Lost Xentu. I needed to go back and finish it out, but the more I put it off, the more distanced I grew from it so that it became something I feared looking at!
If I hadn’t made audio books of the first three in the series this year, I might never have braved opening it up again. But with the stories clear in my mind, the instant I finished listening to the final chapters of Book 3, I opened the last saved document of Book 4 and let my editor know it would be coming soon. That way, I had a commitment: someone waiting for it.
What utter relief when I got it back from my wonderful, thorough and honest editor. Other than the first chapter—which really did need revision!!!—she pronounced it “a great story.”
Lesson? There is no single, clean “rule” I can offer. Sometimes it takes “loading the bases,” getting other people involved, and finding what makes us brave. That can be a lot of things. When I set out to relaunch my series, I was propelled, in a general sense, but couldn’t have known that the steps would form a pattern that ultimately led to the completion of the fourth book after such a barrier had haunted me.
Instagram pics:
Marie Judson 