Update and Writing is Like...

I've been writing.  That is all.

I swear that's what my life feels like these days.  I have other things going on but it seems like all I can think, talk and dream about is writing.  I'm positive my friends are starting to hate me but there is no cure for being close to finishing a book.  And if there is, I really don't want one.

I'm in the home-stretch of MISFITS and more often than not, I'm in love with this MS.  It's easily the funniest and yet darkest book I've written and the intensity is about to pick up as I get closer to the end.  I have a friend who likes to read as I write and she said she's going crazy waiting to see what's going to happen.  As a writer, there are no sweeter words.

MISFITS will be my third completed book and I've realized that each one is a different experience.  My first was so hard to write and took forever to finish.  After it, I figured it was perfect and that revising was for those who weren't as blessed as me.  That book is horrible.  Someday I will rewrite it because I love the idea but *shivers* that book is just bad. 

My second book, KILLER CUPCAKES, took a month to write and years to revise.  Since I wrote it, I've revised it more times than I can count and read it more times than I want to think about.  The funny thing is, I've only queried it for a short amount of time and to a very low number of agents.  I think I've mentioned before that I took a break from writing.  I'm talking YEARS from writing, to see if something else was what I really wanted to do.  It wasn't.  But KILLER CUPCAKES was written before that break, I queried a small number of agents, got good feeback and then did something else for three years.  Six months ago, I decided that my Something Else wasn't what I wanted and that writing was.  Five months ago I entered a contest with KC and won, and I've revised it (a few times) again since then.  I've sent a small number of queries out again and am waiting for more feedback.  I'm optimistic.

Then I realized that if I'm really serious about being a writer I needed to write again.  So a few months ago I pulled out a story that I started after KC (before the break) and loved it.  I'd only written a few thousand words at that point but everyone that I'd let read it really liked it.  That book is MISFITS.  I started seriously working on it again about two months ago, but with revisions of KC in the mix, I've probably only really put a little over a month's worth of work into it.  I plan on finishing MISFITS is about three weeks.  I'm totally, completely absolutely positive there will be a good amount of revisions because as I've worked on it, things have changed and I've realized that there should be more worldbuilding. 

So I guess it's different, and yet kind of the same, every time.

I was tagged by Marian for a Writing is Like post (thanks for the tag, Marian!) and I couldn't think of anything to compare writing with until I wrote this post.  I realized as I wrote that for me, writing is like climbing a mountain.  It's a different mountain every time, but the process is pretty much the same.  I make my way up the mountain, figure out which is the best way to go and dream about the easier climb down.  As I reach the moutaintop, I can see the finish and the way down and then the end of the book is the easiest and most exciting.  And each mountain I climb, I'm more comfortable with the journey, I know how best to get to the top and I know how amazing it is to finish.

And I'm almost done climbing my third mountain!

I'm going to tag:
1: Ashley Graham
2: Jennifer Pickrell
3: Kimberly from Meetings with My Muse

If you want to play, post what writing is like for you and then tag three others.  :)

-Brandy