The Integration Project is nearly done. What’s next?

The #LeticiaWrites project is continuing apace. Today, I started writing scene 82 of 116 of The Integration Project.

When I broke down what this actually means, it means that there is roughly 14 hours of writing time left until The End.

It sounds like a lot, but it’s really not that much time! I get excited little pitter-patterings of heartbeats when I think about it. I’d been procrastinating during my holidays, which means I didn’t write nearly as much as I imagined (before holidays began) I would. I could attribute this to a desire to stay off computers while I’m on leave. But the truth is that I’ve been scared.

There comes a point late in the life of writing a book, I’ve discovered, where you are literally just plodding through the last bit. It became a little bit drudgey for me. I discovered all kinds of worries. They bubbled up from my gut one after the other, and most of them relate to a sense of unworthiness; the remainder relate to a sense of not being good enough, and of being afraid of having left things out by accident.

Today, I sucked it up and sat down for an hour, and wrote two and a half scenes. Now? I’m excited again!

More to the point, I’m kind of (read: terribly) excited that I’m nearly finished. This is truly my first full-length novel, and it’s not really taken me very long to write: Perhaps seven months of Wednesdays, which is actually only about 28 days.

Yes, that’s correct. Twenty-eight days. Imagine how many books I’d write if I wrote books full-time! Holy moly!

So, you might be wondering. What’s after The Integration Project?

The thing that’s coming up after The Integration Project is a young adult series. It’s going to be quite occult; the actual shape of it remains to be seen, as I haven’t done much mapping yet. (This is Leticia being a grown-up and working seriously on one project at a time, you see.)

The exciting thing about the next project is that I intend to write the entire first draft by hand.

With a fountain pen.

In notebooks.

I’ve decided that, because I can type as fast as I think, this is a necessary way of learning to slow down, be more methodical, and be selective about language, imagery, and feeling.

As much as I am going to be writing a witchy young adult series, I also want the book itself to be a talisman, of sorts.

And creating talismans, as anyone trained in the art knows, takes a specific type of intense focus. The kind of intense focus that lends itself very well to writing by hand.

If you love this idea, please consider becoming a patron. It always seems kind of needy when people ask their readers to become patrons, I know. It’s almost like the writer is trying to make money out of a hobby. In my case, it’s part of a goal to be able to write full-time for myself, and your contribution is a genuine enabler, not just because of the funding, but because of what it forces me to do: Write. It may seem like a lot of money, too ($12 per year; $1 per month; $0.23 per week, in USD). And, look, I get that. So I’ll show you that a $1/month contribution equates to four coffees per year. Except, instead of coffee, you get real-time interaction, access to works as they’re written, a weekly podcast, and more besides. So, if you love my work and you’d like to see more of it, please do throw a coin into the hat! You can do that at https://patreon.com/biodagar.