back at it again at krispy kreme

aka starting a new project

The first thing to know about me as a writer is that my brain is a hamster wheel. There is often a hamster there, running very fast, doing many things, and coming up with many ideas. I usually have a backlog of WIP ideas in my head at any given time. Some of them are inklings of an idea, others come out a little more fleshed out.

I wrote about the anxiety that causes a bit in this thread. I often feel guilty for not finishing things off a checklist before moving onto a new thing, but sometimes ideas do not resonate and feel like pulling teeth to write for a variety of reasons. Maybe there’s something I haven’t cracked yet, or it’s the wrong time to write that particular project.

Because I am not on a deadline and am a fast (also maybe feral) drafter, I knew this was a time to dive in and do something a bit adventurous that I could take my time with. It’d be a long time before I had to do anything with it, if I wanted to at all. Before diving into the WIP I am writing now (more on this later), I made an attempt to again tackle this magnum opus of a project I’ve wanted to pursue for a while now. It was sci-fi/historical fantasy. There were pirates. There were robots.

What came out was this:

It stressed me out and I wasn’t having fun, so after some crying, I sat down and ran through what my back pocket ideas were and bounced them off friends and one seemed to hit.

I have always wanted to write a treasure-hunting romance. I grew up on National Treasure, and Uncharted is one of my favorite games. I wanted to write something with the same vine-swinging adventure and puzzle-solving as those pieces of media, but throw in way more kissing. So, that’s what I’m doing. I know there are other treasure-hunting romances out there and probably more to come, so I do not know where mine fits in the market or if it even will, but I’m doing this for me to grow and learn and have fun at a time where I can.

I usually go through the below steps when getting ready to draft a new project. Buckle up!

1. Pinterest Board

I’m a vibes gal. I need to figure out what my characters look like, how they dress, what the setting is like. I spend way too much time on Pinterest collecting pictures and memes and creating the vibe of my story. I continue adding to this as I go, and hope that Pinterest’s algorithm also figures out what I am onto. (in this case, they have. I now get “hot professor” as a recommended search)

2. Playlist

My playlist grows as I go and learn the characters more and discover good pairing songs as I go. It helps to set the vibe (see? vibes are the theme) and get me in moods for writing particular scenes. For this one, I wanted to combine a decent amount of instrumentals for action-y sequences, and more emotional ones for character beats.

Me, making playlists (2023)

I also have a secondary playlist that we call "title (Taylor’s Version)” which came out of a joke with my critique group — we joked once that we should have a Taylor Swift song that pairs with each chapter we send to the group to review, and it stuck. So I make a rough playlist of Taylor songs that fit and pair them with chapters as I go. It’s honestly way more helpful than I could have predicted.

3. Names

I have spent so much time on Nameberry that I’m sure the FBI Agent in my computer thinks I’ve been pregnant like 9000 times (I have been pregnant zero times). I love their name list feature because they sometimes are for certain vibes and images, which is helpful if I know that about a character.

For this book, our protagonists are Tess and August.

4. Plotting

So at some point I have to do actual work instead of just dong Pinterest and Spotify stuff. I’m probably what you’d call a Plantser, and I usually have a rough idea of where the story is going when I start writing. For this one, since I also had an adventure/mystery element to it, I had to know a bit more than the average romance outline.

I start by jotting down everything I know about the story. Plot points. Scenes. Character notes. Anything at all. I usually take that and Frankenstein it into a structure that makes sense and it helps me fill in the gaps and future out what I am actually saying.

I swear by Gwen Hayes’ Romancing the Beat to at the very least get myself started. I don’t completely adhere to it all the time or stress about if I’m fitting the structure perfectly, but I try to use it as a map. For this book, I also infused some of the Save the Cat novel beat sheet because it did have regular action beats in it that I felt were good to keep in the back of my mind. I ended up actually making my own adventure romance beat sheet that I might use moving forward for books like this.

I put them onto notecards — colors corresponding to each act (1, 2A, 2B, and 3) — and this is what my closet door currently looks like!

5. Writing!!!

Usually somewhere in this process, I am overcome with the unquenchable need to begin writing, so I’ve probably started drafting/dabbling by now. For this book, the first line of the prologue came to me, so one night, I started drafting and thus we were off to the races.

I personally like drafting, when it’s going well. When it’s going poorly, I am insufferable, I am sure. I try my absolute best to not stress myself out too much about getting things right on the first try. I’ve written some horrifying first drafts, but they ended up getting a lot better the more I worked on them and figured things out. So if I’m missing something, I turn to my CPs and get their feedback.

What I learned from the (dropped) project before this one is that I am someone who struggles the moment I start overthinking each line and am focused on the tiny pieces vs. the big picture. I try to tell myself to make it happen, then make it better.

With this current draft, I am about 30k in and somewhere in 2A and having a really fun time with it. Like I mentioned before, I have no idea where this idea will take me to go, and I’m writing it with no expectations and it’s been nice.

I hope there was something valuable in here for you guys to read! I asked on Instagram earlier what topics were of interest and starting new projects won, but processing feedback came in 2nd, so I might tackle that next time.

Now for your meme: