2024 is off like a rocket. I finished the first draft of my 8th book last week and had a VERY exciting phone call about my 7th book that I’ll divulge more details about later. But back to finishing the book!

My YA thriller ended up being 77,264 words long, which was close to my target word count. The working title is GYBE. For a book that was just ‘vibes’ in October, it only took ten weeks to become a fully-fledged novel by January. Ha, Gybe-vibes. I think my average pace of six months per book is realistic long-term, although I would love to reach the point where I complete a project every four months and do three per year. However, I don’t know if that will be possible until fall of 2025, when my youngest will start kindergarten. So, for now, I’m just enjoying the brain dump that happens once I’m done with a draft and letting the plot threads leak out of my ears.

I’m putting the draft aside for a couple weeks so it will be fresh when I start to revise. I’ve been focusing on some of my New Year’s goals instead. I like the word ‘goals’ instead of ‘resolutions’. ‘Resolution’ seems very constrictive and almost punitive, like one misstep and you’ve failed your resolution. Might as well throw in the towel for 2024! My goal for this year is to meditate more. My hope is that meditation will lead to improvements in other areas of my life—patience, creativity, and lessening anxiety. Instead of a bunch of small, individual goals, I’ve gathered them all up into one action: meditate! Efficient, no? I think it’s working so far (thanks, HeadSpace app!). I manifested the crap out of the first 2 weeks this year

People ask how I celebrate being done with a draft. It is very nerdy and not at all exciting for anyone who isn’t me. Usually, I say, “Woohoo!” then I double-space the whole manuscript. I draft in single-space format, so after I type ‘The End’, I get to watch the manuscript page number multiply. I look forward to this moment for months (don’t judge me). Then celebrations might involve a cocktail at the end of the day while Conor cooks a nice dinner. Then it’s back to life as usual. Here I am, doing laundry and watching my kids bounce off the walls post-draft. The reality of being a parent writer!

Love,

Taylor