Tag: YA novel

Happy New Year!

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!

Who else is ready for warmer weather??

Love,

Taylor

Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice

I’ve been hit hard by August melancholy this week and the singular beauty that briefly encompasses the end of summer and the beginning of fall. It’s such a small window of transition where we all hold our breath and wait, suddenly realizing that those endless summer nights have subtly gotten shorter, and the mornings need a sweatshirt.

Over the past five years, September has marked the start of hurricane season. Fall meant checking the hurricane update every day and knowing in our guts an evacuation was coming. The heat held on as long as possible, remaining well into the 80’s through Halloween some years. Even back before we had the boat, California also liked to skip autumn.

But this window reminds me to pause, instead of pushing forward through each change like I usually do. It isn’t just suspension, however, I am actually being brought back in time. I don’t know if it is because I’m writing my first YA novel, or the temperature drop over Labor Day weekend always meant back to school, but I don’t feel like a 32-year-old mother of two.

Instead of sending my own four-year-old off to school this week, I half-expect to walk out the front door and find my little gold 1995 Honda parked in the driveway, pom poms in the back window. I am forever sixteen in September, spending my Friday nights under the bright lights of a stadium. My nose is numb but my body is warm, cheering on a team everyone knows is not very good but we do it anyway.

I have no desire to relive these years. Once was enough! But this time of year seems to have brought back the memories with a poignancy I had not expected. I choose to think of it as a little visit from my former self, and maybe I’ll get to see her every September from now on. Maybe she’ll be proud to see what changes each year brings me, and I’ll greet her memory as a reminder of how far I’ve come.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go season everything in my life with pumpkin spice.

Love,

Taylor (Conor, W, and R, too!)