May 19,2021
Bitter Secrets Snippet & Update
Roth and Jasmine at a business dinner:
“This is my wife,” Roth said shortly.
Apparently, that was all Guy needed to know because he nodded and gestured to the other chairs for them to sit.
“My wife?” she muttered under her breath. “That’s it? I don’t even have a name?”
Roth pushed her chair in, forcing her to sit as he took the seat beside her. He draped his arm over the back of her chair and leaned in, staring at her with dark, hungry eyes. “That’s all anyone needs to know.”
Fucker.
Draft of Bitter Secrets © 2021 Mia Knight
I realized something kind of mind-boggling this week--that the chapters detailing Roth and Jasmine's first month of marriage is longer than Bitter Heat. Like, what the fuck?! No wonder I feel like I'm running in place. The same thing that happened with Carmen's story is happening with this one--it's horrifyingly long. What I thought would be one big book is more like two and a half. I told everyone that I wanted to delay the book because I wanted to go deep, but I didn't realize I was going that deep until I actually looked at the word count. I don't know if I'm doing too much or need to cut out a ton of this... I won't know until I read the book as a whole. Right now, I'm in the thick of it and can't look back, I just have to keep mushing forward or I'm going to lose my momentum.
There are so many facets to Jasmine and Roth, it's insane. For every question that's answered, five more pop up. Even I don't know the answer to a lot of things and am trusting that I'll find out later. Their relationship is this mesmerizing rise, plummet, crash, repeat. Sometimes they're enemies, sometimes they're allies. Sometimes they're totally in sync and other times they're on different radio frequencies and don't understand each another even though they're standing face to face.
I've been surprised time and time again with how a piece of dialogue can change the whole dynamic of a scene and take it in a direction I hadn't intended, which makes all my careful planning moot. These characters are some of the most unpredictable I've ever written. I've never had to backtrack so much or do such intense rewrites in the first draft. Each chapter builds on the previous so if one thing is off, the whole book is off. Everything has to be balanced and ending on the right notes or the next scene won't work. I have never written a book like this and hope to God I'm not writing a bunch of nonsense. (insert GIF of someone crying/laughing a tad hysterically).
I feel like this book is making me a bit crazy, but I'm still plodding on.
Life Updates
I am firmly back on the 2-4am sleep schedule. It's the only time that everyone is asleep and I can work. My 4 year old Lhasa apso had a spinal injury (slipped disk) so his back legs gave out. I've had to carry him outside to go potty and am trying to keep him calm so he'll heal and hopefully regain mobility of his back legs.
I went to the funeral for my aunt last weekend and have a friend's father's this Friday. My brother's flying in from Oregon to attend so there's lots going on. On a side note, a ton of people have moved to Hawaii. I see license plates from all over the United States and our little town is packed to the max. I've never seen it like this. Every day feels like a Saturday. Minor errands take forever and simple things like booking a hair appointment, you're lucky if you can get in 3-4 weeks from now. The doctors are overloaded and... I'm just not sure how this is going to work long-term. Everything is out of wack and that normalcy people are hoping comes back is still on vacation.
Things are hectic. The only time I feel like myself is when I'm writing so thank God for that. Throughout all of this, I am still making major headway so I just try to remind myself of that and stay focused. If things don't align and you can't do that thing, don't stress, just pick it up tomorrow.
This was a really random blog, LOL, but it's just stuff that's on my mind so I mixed it in. I hope you're all staying safe and healthy!