Apparently, I missed a very important date a week or two ago. It was on February 10, 2022 that I sat down and began to write a novel about a girl named Christina who dreamed violent precognitive visions of the future. I set the story during the Regency, because I’ve always loved that time period, and I paired her with a handsome wizard, because I love a good romance plot. I initially thought of the novel as a fantasy, but over the course of writing, I became so obsessed with the romance that I wrote the proposal scene in advance–and then had to discard that entire scene, since the story had changed so much by the time I got to the proposal! I learned my lesson, and have since then tried to draft chronologically. Drafting scenes out of order works for many writers, but it does NOT suit my writing style.

It took me about a month and a half to write the first draft of that novel, which has since undergone a number of title changes, from Secrets and Visions (a title that emphasized the mystery and fantasy plots) to The Wildflower and the Wizard (a title that I hope makes it clearer that this is fantasy romance). And although I queried it much too soon, I did something else that was probably more important: I kept writing.

See, prior to last year, most of my writing focused on picture books. In the picture book world, the standard advice for someone who writes one picture book is that they should write another. And another. And another. When you look for a picture book agent, you are typically expected to have at least three manuscripts that an agent would like.

The rules of querying a novel are different in many ways. You don’t need additional manuscripts to submit in case an agent likes the first one! But it’s still true that novel writers need to keep writing. And boy, did I write! I ended up drafting six more novels in 2022, finishing with Runes and Ruin, which I’m currently revising. That pace is ridiculous, and I’m pretty certain that I won’t be able to keep it up in 2023. My teaching load is more challening is some ways, and as I spend more time revising the novels I’ve already drafted, I have less time for working on my newest project. (In fact, don’t ask me about that current project, because it’s going so SLOWLY and painfully.)

But the good thing about my rapid torrent of writing in 2022 is that my writing has improved a lot since the first novel. My beta readers and critique partners have helped make it better, too. I already have good news about one of my manuscripts, though I can’t yet share the details. And I’m hoping for more good news in 2023.

I don’t know if Secrets and Visions/The Wildflower and The Wizard will ever make it into publication. I really hope it does, because I still have an enormous soft spot for that story and its lead characters. But even if it doesn’t, I’m really glad that I sat down and began writing it last February. Thanks to that, I rediscovered just how much fun it is to write novels. And I hope I keep doing that for years to come, whether or not I achieve my publication goals.