No, really. Before the Winds of Winter.

Empress of Dorsa update:

Words written today: 0 (but it’s only 6am)

Manuscript total words: 223,473

I haven’t been blogging because I’ve been writing.

Well, writing and working like a fiend. One of the other English teachers gave me the what-for about how much I’ve been working lately. I don’t even know how she knows — our classrooms aren’t close to each other, and since I’m also part of the ELD department (that’s English Language Development or English skills for multilingual students), I don’t even get to have my prep period with the other seventh grade English teachers and see her on a weekly basis. Nonetheless, when I popped in her room on Friday to ask about where she and the other seventh grade teachers were, she lectured me about working on weekends, working after school, and coming early to school.

I defended myself, pointing out that even though this isn’t officially my first year of teaching, it kinda is, since last year was all online and a very different world. “The way I see it,” I said, “this will be the hardest year of my career. So I’m just sucking it up for a year and investing the hours.”

“Yeah, but next year you’ll be teaching eighth grade,” she said (we loop with our kids). “So it will be a whole new curriculum and you’ll tell yourself the same thing.”

“True … But the year after that, I’ll be back to sixth,” I said.

“Which will be totally different because we hardly had a sixth grade last year thanks to COVID,” she countered. “Rachel, if you’re not careful, every year there will be an excuse to be constantly working. This year it’s teaching on campus for the first time, next year it’s teaching eighth for the first time, then it’ll be a new administration, or you’ll get asked to take a leadership position — it never ends. So YOU have to set some boundaries and take care of yourself.”

Why is it everyone in my life is always pestering me to take better care of myself?? LOL.

“Teacher burnout,” she concluded, “is a real thing.”

I reported the whole conversation to LT, who proceeded to complain that I listen to everyone else but I don’t listen to her.

But anyway, I’m still going to publish Empress of Dorsa before George RR Martin gets around to publishing the Winds of Winter.

I’m confident of that.

As you can see, I’ve added 20,000 words to my manuscript since the school year started. So even though I’m writing at a snail’s pace, I’m still plugging away at Empress every day. I thought I would finish over the summer. I did, in fact, hit my word count goal of 205,000 words over the summer, which means I added over 50,000 words in June, July, and August.

But the book didn’t want to be 205,000 words.

I thought it wanted to be 220,000 words. No, it said. It wants to be longer than that.

The end is in sight, don’t get me wrong. I’ve told myself I’m going to start writing at night, because putting in 200-500 words in the mornings before work isn’t enough to really hit a rhythm for the day. I should be writing at night instead of watching True Blood — this is what I have told myself.

Besides, I want it finished as badly as you do. I want to move on to other writing projects — specifically, the prequel book(s). At the moment, I see the prequels as a trilogy of three interrelated but not perfectly chronologically back-to-back books. But I really, really want to start that project. And do a million other things, too. But I can’t do that til Empress is done.

Gah! This is the book that refuses to be finished!

Sorry for the loooooong time between posts, but I keep telling myself I’m not going to blog again until I really have something to tell you. Or I think, “I’m not blogging because I should be writing.” I figured it was time for an update anyway.

Take care, friends. 🙂