In the eleven (!) years since my first book was published, I’ve become more reticent about blogging about my work in progress. Deadlines shift. Publishing dates change. Difficult events erupt and occupy all mental bandwidth.
I never want to be in the position of cheerily announcing that things are going super awesome with my fabulous new project, and then find myself wishing I could scrub the post from the Internet’s memory when something about said project goes sideways.
And yet, when it’s been a while since I’ve mentioned here that my work in progress does in fact exist, I become anxious. People will think I’m not doing anything. (Which people are these, exactly? Oh, you know. The ones whose job it is to judge me.)
Or I’ll get an email from a fan asking if I’m ever going to write any more books, sometimes with quite specific suggestions about what I should write next. And while I should feel grateful and pleased that a reader wants new books from me, I more often feel sad and guilty that I can’t immediately produce said books, made to order like gourmet sandwiches.
Which is dumb, and probably I should just shake it off, right?
Instead I’m writing this to tell you that what you don’t see in my posts is not simply the anxiety and guilt described above, but the slow accumulation of words that means, eventually, there will be more books. Dammit.