IV. The Emperor
Welcome to The (Writing) Fool’s Journey, a tarot themed log of my creative process as I work on a new novel.
The Emperor: Stability, structure, authority
And we’re back! I mean that in two senses: we’re back to this series after a week hiatus and I’m back in the swing of writing.
It’s fitting that this week’s card is The Emperor, a card that - full disclosure - I usually don’t like. It reminds me too much of patriarchy, a masculine authoritarian figure who respresents structure and control. It’s not a very charitable reading of the card, admittedly, but my personal experience with it just isn’t positive. That said, in this instance, the structure and stability the card represents actually fits for my current creative process.
After an amazing trip to Cleveland to meet with independent booksellers, I am back at my regular job, meaning I am back to dictating. It took me a few days to get into the swing of things, but with some focus and determination, I set my dictation schedule back up. And now? I’m officially over halfway done with my first draft!
Well, okay, over halfway done with the main storyline of my first draft. If you’ve read my last few YA novels, you’ll know I love to play with structure, either with extra timelines or points of view. This project is no different. The additional elements outside of the main timeline still need to be written, but, for reasons I can’t go into just yet, those are a bit harder to dictate. So they’ll come once the main storyline is done.
That’s not to say there’s no struggle. I’m in the muddy middle phase of the book, which can feel like wading through a swamp to get through. But sticking to a schedule and staying committed to my outline is proving incredibly productive right now. Structure and stability indeed.
I”m traveling again in mid-May, so I’m hoping to get as much dictated before then as possible. Which, for the moment, means I’m behind on editing. I have about 4 dictated chapters in need of being transcribed. I used to transcribe and edit each chapter hte day I dictated them, but I just haven’t had the time or mental energy to do that right now. Instead of letting that slow me down, I’ve jsut created a small collection of raw audio. I’ll get to it when I can, and I’m focusing on the dictation for now. In a weird way, the audio is my actual first draft.
Speaking of which, I need to get back to editing a chapter while I have the time. More from me soon!
Have questions about the writing process? Ask in the comments! And join me next Wednesday for another installment of The (Writing) Fool’s Journey.
If you want to read more of my work, you can preorder my new novel here!