I’m taking the plunge! I’m quitting my job to write full time!
Ummm, ok, slight exaggeration. I’m dabbing a toe into the warm waters of the shallow end.
I’m taking a one-semester leave of absence to write full time, starting in February.
Which means: I have five months, plus two months in the summer when I split my time between my writing and my kids, to get my next novel started and finished, from concept to query letter before I delve back into the frantic world of convincing intractable young minds how not to be so, well, intractable.
It took me almost three years of part-time effort to start and finish my current manuscript–and if I’m lucky to get an agent or publisher, there may be even more work before it sees the light of a bookstore shelf–so I recognize I am delusional to believe I can complete my goal. (Especially when the goal is arbitrary–no one is asking me to finish by September; I will not be letting anyone down if I don’t reach my target and there are no consequences if I don’t; I just keep working on it part-time when I go back to teaching in the fall.) Still, I’d love to have something concrete to show for the time off my day job, a return on my investment, if you will.
Just when I was enjoying the thought of finally knowing the whole of Lyra’s story, now I have to figure out my new heroine Evangeline’s tale.
I may soon be drowning…