Just write and worry later!

I am not good at updating this thing, but in case I can't get to my "IFWT" file ever, I still want to have this handy so I keep track of what's going on. I want the process of writing this book to be documented!

Last week I found out some incredible news: Tom just got a contract to publish one of his book at Random House. This is a HUGE deal! I was stunned into absolute panic, I guess you could say! What?! How the...? What did he...? Why is HIS work...? BAH! Overall, though, I have to admit I am just plain happy for the guy. He isn't a bad writer at all, and all personal relationship crap aside, he was and is a friend I can go to for writing advice/ whining. So yeah, it's pretty cool.

And it did one other huge thing for me: LIT A FIRE under my own ass to just get Zachary finished already and get going!

My big problem is thinking, second-guessing, and not being able to just spit out that first, messy draft. I've been editing as I go and that has GOT to stop. No question in my mind. I am never, ever going to finish it if I do that! Why this lesson has taken so long to learn, I don't know, but... as Lisa M. put it when I shared Tom's news, "Now you have a nemesis!" and everyone knows that we all need our own nemesis in life; a person to be competitive with, a person you want to always do-one-better on. (That is a terrible sentence!) :)

So yes, maybe this is how it all had to happen. He had to get published so I would know about it and have it be the piano that fell out of the window and smashed the dull, draggy, thinking-writer right out of my skull. I needed this, and for that reason, I am so incredibly giddy-happy about what I'm doing next!

What's that? Just writing! That's it!

A first draft will be done soon. I refuse to say I haven't written it "yet." Nope. I am writing it RIGHT NOW. It's alive and it's happening.

The next time I update this blog, some amazing things will be reported regarding the story itself. You'll see, Self!