Eliwood S. Gheist

You know what they say; blink, and it’s over.

I’m not the biggest fan of summer. I love gardening and seeing the riot of plants and wildlife. I mostly love not having to shovel endless piles of snow (thanks, CNY). But I still feel a little wistful about seeing summer end. Winter is a time of rest, and one that I start looking forward to around this time of year; even though I know, six months from now, I’ll be cabin-feverish from being trapped beneath cold and ice.

So does that mean that the moral is that I always have something to look forward to?

Being in charge of my own writing career is something that I’ve loved more than I can say. I love being able to call my own shots about the stories I create, and having the control I want to say when they’re ready to release. Even though I’ve only had the one book published so far, I have no interest in slowing down.

The downside, of course? When I need to take a break, everything else does, too!

I spent much of spring and early summer navigating how to promote my book, and working with local bookstores and events to get to chat up Bludeye Beach. In the meantime, I also continued working on the sequel, Return to Bludeye Beach, and my unrelated werewolf romantasy, Eyes Shine Silver in Moonlight. And then, because I think I’ve been locked in rewrite and drafting cycles for too long, my mind cried out in desperation for a new idea.

The Yearning for New Projects

I’ve talked about it before, but Bludeye Beach is far from the first book I’ve written. I’ve written dozens. I’ve just never followed through on any of them, until I wrote Bludeye. And not only that, I’ve learned through this book how to commit to a book until it’s completed; the best way for me to edit, to draft, to polish and refine. Because of that, both Return to Bludeye Beach and Eyes Shine Silver in Moonlight are close to being ready (though Eyes Shine Silver isn’t quite as close as Return). I’ve really come to love editing and redrafting, and finding the best shape for the story that I created.

But … I guess there’s such a thing as drafting fatigue?

Anyway, I woke up from a dream that I half-remembered as a witch being handed some sort of mystical gold orb, and it seized me entirely. What was the orb? Who was giving it to her, and why?

Being who I am as a writer, I wanted it to become a love story; whoever was coming to the witch needed her help, and in doing so, they’d fall in love. But what if it wasn’t the witch able to help, but her daughter–making her the narrative character, but not the hero of her story? And what if it was a dragon egg? And, and, and …

When these sorts of ideas take off, it’s almost like a high. Being able to collapse into a daydream that webs out and spins itself into a premise becomes something I want to know the ending to. And so, interrupting my plans to finally starting editing the third Bludeye book (Below Bludeye Beach, drafted last November), I wrote the first draft to The Yearning Sky in August. It’s short (for me) at 85,000-ish words, and while I love the characters, the premise, and the story …

I’m not totally happy with it.

The pacing was ambitious, and I didn’t get it entirely right. I spent a lot of time worldbuilding for this high fantasy novel, but somehow I didn’t get everything I needed, and it feels like there’s a lot of gaps. I’m trying to balance a love story and a developing mother/daughter relationship, while trying to nail a kind of tricky feeling of being a parent having to let a child go off on their own, while still keeping the story narratively interesting. This little romantasy turned out to be a lot more ambitious than I envisioned, and I didn’t get it right on the first try.

Good.

I don’t know when I’m going to start working on it–I’ll be drafting the fourth Bludeye book this November, and I’m on a stern writing break until then.

Truth be told-I was being overambitious in writing the TYS draft at all.

Due to a collection of personal issues, I’ve been struggling a bit these past few months. And since I still haven’t found another job yet, I’ve tried to fill my time with writing (since I have the time to write), but I’ve been pushing myself too much. I could feel the drag in the final third of drafting TYS, and I don’t know how much of my not being happy with it is because I’m getting very close to burnout, and how much is because I just need to rework some plot points and pacing.

I’m really glad I wrote it. Because I have the draft, this idea is less likely to die somewhere in ether of “idea zone”. And I’m really glad that it’s taught me a valuable lesson about my own limits.

I’m on a strict writing hiatus until November! And I’m glad for it. As summer turns down, I can feel the sleep of winter beckoning for me, and like a writing squirrel, I have to ferret away my creative juices to make sure I have enough energy to write Bludeye Beach Forever starting November 1st.

(This metaphor really got away from me. Do you see how badly I need this writing break?)

A hiatus doesn’t mean stopping

At least, not in terms of the other parts of a writing career.

I’m going to spin up some more efforts to getting Bludeye Beach into indie bookstores, which is just about a full time job by itself. On top of that, there’s a few podcast projects on the horizon; I’m not really able to share it directly yet, but I’ll get to go back on the RSS feeds soon!

I also guested on The Deep List, a new podcast from Oratoria Literary Magazine! I had a great time talking about my writing process, and their other interviews are so much fun! You can catch my episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/55kcUcSAJvz1kizoXewRUp?si=e9a3bcf4d2b14521

On top of that, I’m going to be a panelist for Flights of Foundry, an online writing conference. I’ll get to talk about some of my favorite topics!

Taking a writing break will hopefully mean I get back some energy to putting myself out there for other projects; there are so many ways to have a creative life that I’m still learning about, and I’m excited for what comes next.

Until next time, friends!