MMB5 is officially underway (sort of)

I hate this book. I love this book. I hate this book. I love this book.

In fact, I hate-love this book so much that I have “officially” restarted it seven times. None of my attempts to launch this story ever make it past chapter 8.

I start, and I stop, and I start again. This is the dance of the writer who has no idea what she’s trying to say, or why it’s so important that she’s willing to sacrifice the next two years of her life for the slim possibility that people will read it.

Here’s what I know so far: Moving Mountains, book 5 will be an adult book, meaning it will have adult content. It will feature the return of a key figure from Ray’s past. Hannah will discover what an awful person she can truly be. Victor and Adrianna will make some questionable decisions to avoid repeating history.

And that’s pretty much it.

Oh, I’ve tried outlining (I hate it, but I’m willing to do it for a good cause). I’ve tried writing by hand, on my phone, on my computer. I’ve had long, therapy-style conversations with myself about why I feel that I NEED to do this writing thing, even though a not-so-small voice in my head is screaming, “NO ONE CARES. YOU SUCK. YOU’RE A TALENTLESS HACK WITH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR AND AN INABILITY TO LET GO.” My inner therapist (what, you don’t have one of those?) agrees that I’m probably wasting my time.

But the truth is, I’m a project person. I need to do this writing thing because it’s where I find myself.

And because, duh, I’m a writer.

Am I a writer? I used to think I was a writer-writer. You know, the kind that walks into a room and gets all smiley as they say, “Oh, I’m a writer” when someone asks what they do. It’s just so fucking romantic, you know? But I’m not really a writer-writer, I’m just a “yeah, I’m a writer” kind of writer. If you don’t know the difference, you must be new here.

I’m not doing too well, if I’m being honest. On paper, everything looks great: I’m financially stable, I’m generally healthy, and as of last week, I’m officially a certified Personal Support Worker (*cue confetti*). But my cat died, and I’ve been sick (note I said “generally healthy”), and the longer I stare at my phone, the more I resent my decision to disconnect, to disengage, to disappear from the spaces that once felt like home to me. I am both unencumbered and unsettled. I am lost. Thus, the book calls to me.

Part of why I can’t get started, I think, is because I know that at some distant point in time, this project will bring about another end. And it will feel great, for a while, to see the book on my website, perfectly aligned with its forerunners, a little grey blob of text floating enticingly beside it. My pride and joy. Until it isn’t. Then it will just be another hole where I ripped out a piece of my heart. I’d like to delay that moment for as long as I can, kind of like how I knew back in March that my cat was dying but I continued to buy him his favourite food and hoped he’d put the weight back on somehow. Denial is a drug, and I’m an addict.

You know, it would be so much easier to write this book if I didn’t put so much pressure on myself to make it better than my last (I mean, have you read my series?) But I’m that kind of person: I can’t let go, and I can’t get started. I am the unmasterful master of my characters’ destinies.

I’m not making any promises. I’m probably not even making any sense. Whether the book happens or doesn’t is of little consequence to me (and you, I’m sure), but I’m still going to try to do something with these ideas, at least until something more interesting stumbles along.

Diana Gabaldon, author of the beloved Outlander series, recently announced there will be a tenth book. As per her website: “Book Ten might be the last of my Outlander novels… Or it may not!” Dear reader, believe me when I tell you that this may be the scariest thing I’ve read this year. Not because I don’t love a good Jamie-and-Claire romp (I mean, who doesn’t?) but because a famous author (a writer-writer) just admitted that she doesn’t know when or where her series will end. I can picture it now: me, ten books into my own series, hunched over my laptop whispering “My precious” like some Gollum with a taste for hazelnut-flavoured coffee.

(Of course, Diana Gabaldon is a gifted storyteller and I’m a talentless hack, so I might run out of steam before I run out of sanity. Cross whatever ya got.)

All right, that’s it for me. Tea’s getting cold, and this book won’t write itself.