It’s done! That is, it’s not completely done – there are various tasks to be done, such as the arranging of scenes into chapters, the collation of the non-Scrivener doc (clings to Scrivener) and a final read through, all of which will happen over the weekend. But the scene by scene edit of The Creature Court Book Two: Cabaret of Monsters, the part that requires the absolute full on part of my brain, is done, finally.

I’m happy with the book. I’ve addressed all the things that I thought were a problem from the first draft, and it’s basically as good as I can get it on my own, which is exactly where you want to be when it comes to submitting an ms to the publisher. Hopefully my editor (please let them give me Nicola again!) will find a whole bunch of new things, and I’ll have a nice break between then and now so as to be open to the needs of the structural edit.

Not yet, though. Not yet!

This is a big deal for me. Looking back over old posts, I wrote 90K of the book during the latter half of my pregnancy, and hit the 100K mark before Jem was two months old. I finished the draft somewhere between her being 10 and 12 weeks old. (seriously?? I wrote a comment on Lauren McLaughlin’s guest post the other day claiming that I hadn’t done much in the way of writing for the first 3 months of my baby’s life – how can I have forgotten this so soon??)

This is the first time I have written anything with a 0-6 month old baby to take care of, let alone a novel with a real publisher deadline! When Raeli was a baby, I retired my novel for most of the year, and only started back on my thesis when she was 6 (cough, 9) months old.

My life has changed and changed and changed again over the last six months. Jem sleeps through the night (from midnight to six, anyway, meaning I get a decent chunk of sleep), Raeli is back at school (FIVE days a week), and Jem has two half days in daycare a week. Working has gone from a struggle to being something that is – possible, simply possible, most days.

So yes, I can do it, apparently. The Mama Writer thing. Now I get a whole blissful month to catch up on my life. I want to work on long-neglected projects, hang out with my baby, read, throw as much crap out of the house as possible (I gave two bags of baby clothes to the Salvos today!), get myself organised for regular exercise, and of course let Book #3 percolate merrily in the background of my brain.

I never used to be the kind of writer who had ‘book writing’ months and ‘fallow’ months – but then I never used to be the kind of writer who could produce 20-50K a month, either. This way is better for my life now: working months and slightly less working months. I look forward not only to my month “off” in March, but also to returning to the writing routine I have found sanest when I go back to the Creature Court in April – 20,000 words a month, and no writing on weekends. Oh, luxury!

I’ve been planning out my year a bit, too. Grants to apply for, a trilogy to finish, and proposals for The Next Thing to work out (Nancy Napoleon novels? Shakespearian necromancers? Emo-goth fairy godmothers?).

Interesting times, in the best possible way.

Tags: cabaret of monsters, creature court, editing, mama writer, writing