Fourth Draft Musings

Welcome to Words and Wanderlust, my new blog focused on the writing process. This is not going to be curated, perfectly written content, but rather a place to see into the brain of someone writing a novel. It's place for me to simply free-write about where I am at, what I'm feeling about it, and be honest about this very challenging, very beautiful process.

I started writing my WIP (work in progress), THE WINDS OF VARISYN about a year ago. I was working on another manuscript before then, and it just wasn’t coming together… I was forcing the story to go in a direction that wasn’t right for it. I wanted to write this bigger fantasy story, but it was truly an idea built more for a contemporary spec fiction, horror piece.

So I tabled the previous manuscript, because these ideas for a new story were swimming insistently in my brain, demanding I notice them. I was really frustrated with a lot of what I was seeing in the world, with climate change, oligarchy, bodily autonomy… and those frustrations birthed an idea for a book. What if magic was running out, killing the world with it, because of the greed of nobles? But instead of taking responsibility, they blamed the humans, turning them into a “lesser” species than the fae?

In truth there is a scene right at the end of the book that was my VERY first idea for it, but telling you that now would be a spoiler hehe.

I am a mix of plotter and panster—I knew where I wanted the major beats of the story to land, but it really told itself to me as I was going through it. I abandoned my zero draft at about 70k words and went back, because my ideas had just changed so drastically I needed a fresh start. I used my story coach husband’s StoryMetrics - a story beat framework - and started over, giving the story a bit more structure. Then I finished my messy, wonderful, terrible first draft.

Writing that first draft was a revelation. It changed my entire world to dive into this craft to that extent, and to find how passionate I really was for writing. I quit my corporate job to start a business for creatives, I connected with a whole new community, and I drove often into the woods to write alone in my camper (with my dog of course). It was the best part of my 2025. There was truly a sense of tapping into this other world and the characters pulling me along into their story.

The second draft was really about taking this huge checklist of edits that came to me as I was writing the first draft and turning the book into a cohesive story. Third draft was a big tidying up and I was very happy with were things were so I sent it to my alpha readers—my husband, my sister, and some of my friends. It took about six weeks and let me tell you… it was terrifying to wait that long.

When the feedback finally came, so much of it was positive that it was very affirmative, but it also showed me how resilient you really need to be as a writer. Because the critical feedback was SO IMPORTANT! It really showed me those areas where the characters in my head weren’t shining through, where the plot wasn’t paced well, and how to make the themes a lot deeper.

I went back and did a lot more world building, character backstory, developing the lore, and every decision has had a big ripple effect… leading to an almost complete rewrite. I am truly taking my time in every chapter this time around, playing with the sentence structures, focusing on every minor interaction, experimenting with different words that make the emotions and setting pop. And the story is shaping into something I am immensely proud of.

That being said it is HARD, and incredibly consuming. Unlike the flow and speed of previous versions, I find myself mulling over a single word for half an hour. I am checking and rechecking to make sure this version is in line with the changes I am making.

But that’s what writing is, isn’t it? It’s messy and beautiful and enormously rewarding and really, really hard. This draft is the most challenging yet, but I am so excited to get to the point where I can share it with others.

Thanks for reading this far… I can’t wait to share more of my journey here on Words and Wanderlust.