Here we are with only a few days left in January. I’m around thirty thousand words into the first book of a new series. This is a series I’ve had floating around in my head for a few years now and in late December I decided to focus on it and put my other books/series aside.

When I started this pen name, I did so with the intent to write fantasy and paranormal romance. I love those genres and probably about eighty percent of what are read falls into those two categories. For the last few years I’ve struggled to write and I finally had to admit it’s because, while I love fantasy and paranormal romance, my writing style doesn’t work well with those genres.

I’m an organic writer. If you want to know more about that you can check out my earlier blog posts about my writing process. (You can find them HERE, HERE, and HERE) It typically takes me between three and six months to write a first draft. That’s if I’m writing contemporary romance. Writing fantasy or paranormal romance it is averaging somewhere around six to eighteen months.

The reason being, I don’t plan out things in advanced. For me the not knowing what’s going to happen and the journey is what makes writing fun. If it’s not fun, then why do bother. Writing is a job and something I take very seriously. Some might say too seriously. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I have ten or twelve first drafts at the moment. Ranging from fifty thousand words to a hundred and fifty thousand words. Of those ten or so drafts there is one I might publish, but even that one will need heavy edits and rewrites. No one will ever be a bigger critic of my writing than me. But it’s still something I enjoy doing almost more than anything else. It’s that enjoyment that keeps me coming back time and time again, even when it’s hard. It’s my motivation for continuing on even when I know I’m not likely to be successful at this.

Fantasy and paranormal romance requires keeping a lot of information in your head about the world and the rules you’ve set out. It means making sure there aren’t plot holes in the story that will paint you into a corner later in the series, or the book. Which is why most of the first drafts I currently have are unlikely to be read by anyone other than me. I will write something in chapter one and then by the time I get to chapter seven I’ve forgotten about it and so I write something else and then by the time I get to chapter twenty I’ve forgotten both of those things and so I end up writing a third thing. This has happened more than once. It’s usually something little I don’t think is going to be a big deal and it always ends up effecting more of the story than I realize. Which in some cases would mean rewriting a third of the book or more. It’s often easier to start over than to rewrite a book. At least that’s what I’ve found to be the case in the past.

I’m not saying I will never publish a fantasy or paranormal romance book or series. I might and I hope someday I will be able to write a book or series I’m proud to put my name on. Until that time I can’t keep prioritizing those books, no matter how much I want to write them. From now on they will have to be my passion project. That book or series I work on in my spare time after I’ve met my other commitments.

At times, being a rational adult really sucks. This would be one of those times.

With that in mind, I’ll also be redesigning my website in the near future as I work on rebranding myself.

The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find it, the courage to get on to it, and the perseverance to follow it.

Kalpana Chawla