Anyone who knows me will likely be surprised to hear that I sometimes hate writing. By October 2026, I will have published 11 titles\u201410 novels and one novella\u2014in five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing is a compulsion to me. From fall 2019 until February 2023, I worked on writing every single day. I do not consider writing\u2014or working on writing\u2014work, so there\u2019s no real need for a break. Now, I only take off the two weeks we spend in Germany every year starting at the end of May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet sometimes I genuinely hate writing. I think it\u2019s partly because I\u2019m a pantser. Maybe if I had every aspect of my stories outlined\u2014and then actually managed to stick to those outlines\u2014this wouldn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I come up with an idea\u2014usually inspired by a song, a saying, or something someone says\u2014I have an arc in mind. I know who the characters are supposed to be, where they start, and where I want them to end up. I\u2019m not talking about the romance. That\u2019s a given. I mean who they become as people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But most of my plans change, at least to some degree. Sometimes the changes are radical\u2014a character doesn\u2019t work, and I have to do a rewrite (looking at you, A Question of Sincerity<\/em>). Sometimes someone who was supposed to be meaningless suddenly grows into a major character. Sometimes a villain becomes a loyal supporting character with a completely different arc. And sometimes the overall plot shifts dramatically because of an idea that pops into my head thirty percent in (Forged in Deception<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything is in flux while I\u2019m writing, and that can be daunting. Just like opening a new Word document. A blank page. An empty file that I have to fill with another story. On some level, that\u2019s terrifying. You sometimes doubt whether you\u2019ll be able to do it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It also means I write (almost) every day during drafting. If I step away for too long\u2014sometimes even three days\u2014it becomes difficult to get back into the story. It\u2019s not that I\u2019ve forgotten what happened. I simply don\u2019t feel<\/em>\u00a0it the same way anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The middle of every draft is also a nightmare. It\u2019s difficult in part because I\u2019m an underwriter. If I let myself, I could probably finish a draft at around 45,000 words. The problem is that the story in my head always has more meat than what ends up on the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To me, everything feels complete. The emotional beats are there. The logic of the story is there. But sometimes my beta readers or editors have to point out what\u2019s missing: Could we see another scene here? Maybe spend a little more time with them at this stage? Those gaps can be hard for me to spot, because in my mind the story already exists in full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means my content revisions usually add five to ten thousand words. I also don\u2019t care much about description or scene setting. Probably because I can\u2019t picture anything in my head. My stories revolve around what\u2019s happening in the minds of my characters and in their conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Drafting a novel is hard. It\u2019s pressure. It\u2019s uncertainty. But it\u2019s necessary to do what I love most: shaping a draft into a novel. I love revisions. That\u2019s where the real joy lies for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do enjoy writing\u2014I obviously wouldn\u2019t write this much if I didn\u2019t. But I much prefer what comes\u00a0after<\/em>\u00a0the first draft is complete, when you can start molding it, when you can breathe real life into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s not to say my first drafts are terrible. I usually keep ninety percent of what\u2019s there. But it\u2019s like creating a sculpture. The draft forms the body\u2014the overall shape, the head. And once you have that, you can begin the delicate work. You add precision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s where the heart of my stories lies. And to get there, I have to write the first draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Anyone who knows me will likely be surprised to hear that I sometimes hate writing.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,13],"tags":[38,24],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forged-in-deception","category-thoughts-on-writing","tag-forged-in-deception","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1982,"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/1982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabrinablaum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}