So, once again, I’ve changed my mind.

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This will not come as any sort of surprise to those who know me. I am the one, after all, that really can’t decide what she wants for supper and so has a bit of everything; who struggles to make even the simplest decision about which film to watch; and has once completely opted out of a survey because she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to be Ms or Mrs.

But anyway. I digress.

Those of you who follow me on Facebook will have seen recently that I’ve been working on a new novella series, and I got pretty close to finishing the first one…and then I stopped working on it. I changed my mind about what my writing priorities were.

So now I’m working on  the first novel in a four novel series. Becuase of course.

So what prompted me to change my mind? A myriad of reasons actually, and I’ll share them with you:

1. Too much plot!
I was in the enviable position of actually having too much plot to fit into the novella. I had given myself 25,000 words per novella, and I reached the 20,000 word mark without really delving deeply into the narrative, let alone explore the characters and their developing relationships. I got frustrated, and I wanted to go back to novels again.

2. Too much dissertation!
This probably needs a bit more explanation: I actually started writing this novel two years ago, but I was forced to put it on hold because I had my Medieval Studies MA dissertation to finish, and I was finding myself getting distracted – who wouldn’t! I really hated the fact that I never finished it, and it was going to be my next novel anyway.

3. Too much encouragement!
You may be laughing at this one, but it’s true! My husband is super encouraging, but he always wants me to keep challenging myself – and a four novel series that spans hundreds of years? That’s pretty challenging, and that’s what I had put aside that MA year. In his mind, novellas were small fry, and he is right (at the moment).

So: that’s what I’m doing now! I can’t pretend that it’s not hard work, because it is, and I can’t pretend that I don’t doubt sometimes whether I’m a good enough writer to attempt this, because I do . . . and yet I’m loving it. Chapter 8 was finished this evening, and my editor has a few amends for Chapters 1-3. This novel is happening!

I’ll keep you posted 🙂

What have you changed your mind about before – in your writing, or in general? Let me know in the comments, tell me on Facebook, or tweet me!