Susan and John Ruff, Fantasy Authors

The first draft of the 3rd book in The Doorway to Magic trilogy is finally complete. At the moment, it is about 106,000 words long, but that is likely to change in the second draft.

As I finished the manuscript, I was reminded, once again, of the importance of having accountability partners as an Indie author. It seems counterintuitive, I know, because writing is a solo activity, but working alongside other people makes a huge difference for me.

For the past year, I had been puttering along, trying to keep up with my 500-words-a-day minimum, but feeling like I would never get to the end. Then about two months ago, Bryan Cohen’s Author Ad School started a new weekly event called “Page Pals.” Basically, it consists of a hosted Zoom session in which any member of the Ad School can show up to write. You list your starting word count at the beginning of the two-hour session and the ending word count when you leave. The only rule is no microphones; it is a quiet time to write. Originally, it started once a week, but then they opened up more sessions.

John teased me when I first tried it. He could not understand how staring at tiny boxes with people’s names in a quiet Zoom room could make a difference for writing.

However, Page Pals worked amazingly well to get me motivated to write. The requirement to list the word count kept me focused on typing instead of drifting into distractions. (There are so many distractions on a computer these days!) It also felt great to have a group of other authors who cared about the fact that I was writing and were ready to cheer me on.

The results have been amazing. I finished adding about 30,000 words to the manuscript in the past month. That’s more than I have written in a month since I took part in NaNoWriMo in November 2021.

The manuscript does not have a cover or even a firm title yet, but the heaviest lifting is done. Now comes the second draft!

I really have to thank Bryan Cohen, the Author Ad School staff, and all my fellow Ad School students for their tremendous help and encouragement all through the writing process.

By the way, if you are curious about Ad School, Bryan runs a free “Ad Profit Challenge” four times a year that provides great information about Amazon advertising.

Anyway, I still need to get our author newsletter sent out, so I must sign off for now. Talk to you in November!

-Susan 10/6/2023