Where are we now?

I never completed reading the book Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It was a book that I had purchased for my young twenty-something sister to remind her that there were dangers in the world that she was ignoring. And also hoped my sister could live vicariously through Cheryl's lofty endeavor instead of taking her own solo road trip across America, which she finally did, but with her boyfriend (Yay!). Then a few years later I read half of the book, and learned it wasn't really that type of book. But Oprah made it sound that way when interviewing Cheryl on her Book Club reboot. And I hate to admit it, especially as a writer, I liked the movie better because it did what I thought the book was going to do.

The story is about Cheryl's hike along the Pacific Coast Trail - PCT from California to Washington. In the movie, the terrain is used to demonstrate how long and expansive this seemingly never ending journey is, changing from desert to forest to snow covered meadows. There is a notable scene with Reese as Cheryl in the desert, land behind her and equally the same amount of land in front of her. She looks tiny. This is how I feel with our book.

Except for the terrain can be deceiving. Every time I think we have it. That we nailed our landing.  I look up and realize there is still so much land in front of us, regardless of the amount of land behind us, and the terrain was not what I thought it was.

Quitting has never been an option. I must do my best to see this project through. And what comes of my efforts are out of my control, but at least I put in the time.

So, where are we now? I just finished my plot revision edit to our Young Adult Fantasy. My sister is in the middle of her revisions (but she's a little bit on hiatus because of school and life - and that's okay with me). And we started to rough out a new book - an Adult Mystery. However, this time in starting a new book, we are much better prepared for the trek in front of us. Our pack is much lighter because of all the lessons learned and continue to learn from writing our first.