I wrote a hit television show. Critically acclaimed, even.

One small problem —

Someone else wrote it first.

In thumbing through a magazine, I caught a sidebar about the plot twists last season on a very popular television show that — and I feel a need to emphasize this — I don’t watch.

The show’s plot twists are almost identical to the subplot of my novel (the one I drafted in the final quarter of 2018 that is now resting and breathing). 

I cracked up. In laughter, not, like, emotionally.

Look, this is a good sign…something about great minds thinking alike. From what I hear, this is a very good series (I’m not naming it at this time, please humor me.)

So this tells me that I’m on the right track.

I’m also early enough in the process and have enough work to do otherwise that it’s more of a setback than it is a problem. I need to rethink my subplot, which I wasn’t married to anyway.

The rewrite will push back my schedule a little bit, so I’m looking to have the second draft no later than the end of May, the third draft by end of September, then some editing/beta reading and send it out by New Years Eve 2019. (assuming I don’t need one or seventeen more drafts.)

I have another week or so until I start the reworking. I wanted to make sure I was itching to get back to it. I am itching. 

So, in the meantime, I’m trying to stay limber. This week I wrote five first drafts of small essays, 500-1000 words each, each to be kept in storage until I see a call for an essay that might fit one of these pieces.

I reworked and submitted another piece for an anthology. I won’t hear back from that one for a while, but if it is rejected (remember, I’m going for 50!) I know the next place I want to submit it.

On it goes.

And just in case I don’t sound stuffy enough, I started reading a fairly modern translation of The Canterbury Tales, a book I somehow managed to avoid in high school, college, and graduate school. And I was an English major. So far, I have to tell you, I’m really enjoying it, and I am equally sure that if I were slogging through the original English (or a less modern-language version of it) I would have given up already.

Still working on saying big ol’ Yesses to the right things, working on learning to write, working on living. 

Doing the work.

Have a great week!