When was the last time you stepped outside your comfort zone?

I quite enjoy sitting in the comfort of my home, wrapped up in a warm blanket with a book in my hand. To be honest, if that was something I could do all day every day, it would likely be the only thing I do. But where is the fun in that?!?!

For many years, I told myself that I really wanted to be an author. Every book I read would only reiterate this dream when I would either scoff at how the story went or swoon at the chemistry leaping off the page. Truth is, I would always remain sitting here reading instead of exploring what it was like to write stories had I not decided to push myself out of my comfort zone every fall.

Why fall? Because it's when my birthday is, and for some reason (nostalgia maybe?) I always get this incessant desire to completely shift my life. It would eat at me for weeks and I would beat myself up over the fact that I wasn't living my life in a way that brought me joy. I was leaving so much left undone, I wasn't checking off my bucket list, I didn't carpe diem a single day, and I regretted all of it. When I realized I was putting an added pressure on my life that I really didn't need, I decided it was time to do something different, to approach how I viewed my lack of accomplishments differently. 

Enter the fall writing challenge. This year marks the fourth consecutive year that I have challenged myself to focus on a writing project in the fall months. Of the four, only one has produced a published book - last year's writing project was Authentically Anchored, which I published this past summer. Now that I know it's entirely possible to do this, I decided that this year I'll revisit the romance series I began back in 2020 that I pushed aside. 

Because I wanted to completely redo this series, I discovered what I initially thought would be book 3 should, in fact, be book 1. This revelation made it the perfect project to pick up this fall. The only problem - I have no idea what I'm writing, who the characters are, or what the plot is going to look like and I need to know all of this before October 1st when I begin plotting the book.

I decided to utilize the month of September to set the story foundation for this book since it is missing. The best place to start was with what I did know about the book. I knew the location, the love story, and the tropes I wanted to cover. 

My first action item was to create the Pinterest Board for my book.

I have been consistently adding pins to this board the last two weeks and it is no where near completed but it has a good start. 

My second action item was to create the Spotify Playlist for my book.

Again, it is no where ready to be finalized, but it's a good starting point to capture the sounds of the scenes. Of course, I started this playlist back in 2020 and the story is changing already so what is on there now will likely change.

Currently, my big action item is character building. I have to know who it is that influences everything in the story, and the only way to do that is to tap into my character building. I know that there will be cross over from the other two books I have already created characters for, so they need to be introduced in book 1. I also know there will be new characters I haven't yet developed that have a part to play in this story. 

I had set a goal of having this done by now, however, I'm behind schedule on this task. I like to create a spreadsheet that logs all the data of my characters in it for easy access when writing my story to help me remember important details like age, birthday, hair or eye color, and relationships currently connected to the character. All I know for this story are the two main characters names because that was as far as I had gotten. 

Character building is one of those intimidating things that often keeps me frozen in place, unwilling to move forward because I feel like I have to fill out these really long questionnaires when, in reality, I don't. I picked this feeling up after a week on YouTube listening to how other authors handle character building, and I tried all of the freebie templates I could find, only to become completely overwhelmed. For me, specifically, I operate better with a less is more approach and the spreadsheet makes my brain happy with its minimalistic organization. 

Finding what works best for you is what will make the difference between having a book idea and having a published book. I have a series idea I've sat on for four years because I overwhelmed myself by trying out someone else's process and never really focusing on what I knew of my own strengths when it comes to creative writing. It's great to get ideas from more than one or two other authors too, because what you may find is you like to take pieces of each of them to create your perfect process. 

Once you take the first step outside of your comfort zone and build your process as you go, you'll find that stepping out wasn't as hard as you thought it would be after all. 

If you'd like to join me this fall as I write my next book, I'd love to have you in my November to New Year Workshop. It's free, there's a Facebook Group, and you'll get to connect with me on Zoom. You can sign up over on my Ministry website until September 27, 2024. I hope to see you there!

With Grace, Shonda Ramsey