If you’re not following me on social media, you missed an important tidbit from last week. I’ve started my first draft of my next book.

In fact, I’m over 10,000 words into it after just three writing sessions (totaling a little shy of five hours.) For comparison, My Last Days is around 92,000 words. So I’m chipping away at it pretty quickly.

As is typical of how I write, I’m just going and going and going. I don’t like to spend a lot of time outlining and creating character personas. Particularly since most of my characters are rooted in reality. They may not be exact clones of actual people in the finished product, but they are as I’m writing. For me, that makes drafting much easier and quicker. Does it make a better end product? Probably not. But it’s how I enjoy writing and I fear when this feels more like a job than a passion, I’ll not want to do it anymore.

So far, I’ve exposed two hints about the book. In case you missed them, I’ll share them here, too:

1. In takes place in 1996 – so much nostalgia coming your way!
2. It takes place in Billerica, Massachusetts.

I don’t have any goals around when the draft will be done. I didn’t want to impose any additional self-apposed stress on myself until life gets back to a closer semblance of normal (namely, daycare re-opening.)

For now, the goal is to write a few chapters a day until I feel comfortable with the first draft. Then work on tightening up the main plot points, the characters, and the entire premise before shipping it off to beta readers. If you want to be a part of the beta reading process (you read an early draft and provide your honest input), sign up for my mailing list. It’s the best way to get the inside scoop on the new book, as well as exclusive discount coupon codes for future books!