Saturday, September 30, 2023

Season 6 Whats The Dream? Blog 23: A Writer's Place

 A Writer's Place

Crimson Cup is a coffee shop in Clintonville that has popped up sporadically in this series. Its first appearance was in Season 1, and it was the setting and the namesake of the Season 2 installment, “Coffeeshop Surprise.” One of its most recent appearances was last season when I spoke at the visual conference, OCALICONLINE from the location.

As a refresher, last year, OCALICONLINE was held from November 15th-18th, and I had taken off work for each day of the conference so that I could enjoy it in its entirety. All of this to say, I spent that entire week at Crimson Cup. On the first day of the conference, I got to the coffee shop 15 minutes early to get my drink and set everything up. I immediately recognized the cashier when I walked in.

“Hi Lydia,” I said to her when I saw her.

“Hey Mitch,” she replied, “what have you been up to?”

Lydia and I went to high school together, but she was a grade below me. I told her about OCALICONLINE, she asked how I got that gig, and I explained this series and that I had published one book and was working on publishing my second. She said she wanted a copy of The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child, and after, I told her that I would get her one.

Now as I explained when I announced my second book, my plan is to have four books in the Greattastic Adventures series. Since those books are about my childhood, I wanted to get them done before I turned 30. As a result, I was always working on two books. When The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child was my main project, Once In A Lifetime: A Song For Sam was on the back burner. When Once In A Lifetime was my main project, Greattastic Adventures 2 took its spot on the back burner.

About a month before OCALICONLINE, I woke up at 8:30 on a Saturday morning in a really good writing mood. Since Once In A Lifetime was in the editing phase, I got on my computer and wrote all day, only taking breaks to eat and go to the bathroom, and I wrote about 75% of Greattastic Adventures 2!

Now Greattastic Adventures 2 and 3 could have been one book, but I didn't want to make it so big and overwhelming, so I split the narrative down the middle. However, I still wanted them to come out during the same year. When I wrote most of book 2, I came up with a new plan.

1. Finish Greattastic Adventures 2 by spring break 2023 (I succeeded).

2. Start writing Greattastic Adventures 3 shortly thereafter, and finish it by the summer of 2024.

3. While working on Greattastic Adventures 3, run Greattastic Adventures 2 through editing and formatting.

4. Once steps two and three are completed, run Greattastic Adventures 3 through editing.

5. Published both books in 2025.

This was all before Paige and I started dating. That's important because while Paige did not hinder these plans, at the beginning of our relationship, I was spending a lot of time with her that I would usually spend writing. As I've explained before, over the summer, I didn't see her for a month because she went on a cousin's trip, and then another family trip, and I went to Colorado. While she was on the cousin's trip, I decided to start writing a little more seriously.

Because doing OCALICONLINE at Crimson Cup had been so successful, I decided to start writing there. On my first day there, I got like seven chapters written, and I realized that writing in a coffee shop is a stereotype for a reason! When school started back up, I would go to Crimson Cup multiple times a week after work, and I am proud to announce that I am ahead of schedule. As of September 14th, 2023, I have finished writing Greattastic  Adventures 3. 

Because editing has not begun yet, I think I am still going to stick to my plan of aiming to publish by 2025. I will let you know if things change, but I wanted to write about this now because I’m really proud of myself! Yes, this is a project I've been working on for 6 years, but the fact that I've written three books within two and a half years of publishing my first, I think, is pretty impressive! Also, I'm planning on taking these two years to write more books so that when I finish The Greattastic Adventures series, I can just start pumping out new books.

Have a Greattastic day, and be safe

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

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