How author J.G. MacLeod finished her novel "one sentence at a time"
Break through the perception that you need hours per sitting to finish your book
Life, you know. It comes with many ups and downs, in case you haven’t noticed. It’s also filled with endless commitments to balance and juggle. So how do we also nurture our creativity and spur our productivity? Cups of tea? Eight hours of sleep? Gazing at still waters?
Maybe. But for incredibly busy author J.G. MacLeod, there is little time for calming pursuits. Still, she wanted to finish her book, the third and last in a series. She needed to finish it.
And she felt stalled. Worse, she had gone through a very difficult time. It was hard to emerge from the gloom and return to the keyboard.
Then one day, someone made a wee suggestion. And about two months later she had
. . . completed the saga of Brigid and Ferghus. The Future Bride series.
J.G. MacLeod explains.
When did you start the last instalment in your series?
Technically, I started writing Book 3 while I was writing Book 2. The last chapter in The Past Love (Book 2) is the second chapter in The Once and Future Love (Book 3).
I published three books in 2021, which is partly why I think it took me so long to get back into a regular writing routine after that year. It was also a difficult year emotionally, so I had to process grief and change and mental fatigue before I could write “rom com” again. I wrote in spurts during 2022 and had approximately 75 pages of The Once and Future Love finished that year.
Then, it sat, and sat, and sat. My poor characters were stranded in one moment in time, and I couldn’t get out of that ‘rut’. It was emotional – thinking I had to have all the time in the world to sit down and write something, rather than simply using the time I did have more effectively.
What approach did you take to completing it?
A fellow author (click to discover who it is) said, why not write one sentence at a time? When I tried that, it broke the “spell” I was under, and the words poured out as if someone else was typing the manuscript. I had weekends where all I did was write – hardly stopping to eat or sleep. This is exactly how The Future Bride (Book 1) was written, and it was an amazing feeling to reconnect with that energy to finish the series.
I honestly think it was a matter of giving myself permission to write as little or as much as I could, rather than viewing it as an insurmountable obstacle I had to try to conquer. I viewed it as a beloved pastime again, and I grew fond of the writing process. My success sort of snowballed as a result of eliminating the pressure.
Once you were writing it again, how long did it take to finish?
I wrote most of the novel in December 2023 (approximately two-thirds of it) and published it in early February 2024.
In addition to writing one sentence at a time, and feeling inspired, I had also charted the entire story arc in 2019. This helped immensely, since I always knew where the characters were headed and how the series would end. Once the inspiration struck, the story flowed well and concluded in a way that I believe will satisfy readers who have followed these characters from the beginning.
From a book marketing standpoint, how important is it to declare a series complete, in your view?
In addition to the immense, personal satisfaction of finishing a series, it’s similar to the on-demand streaming services like Prime and Netflix. People want to be able to binge a series, whether it’s TV or books. I think they are more likely to load a series onto their Kindle when they know it will start and end, rather than being left dangling for two years (or more, in some cases).
What are you working on now?
I will let you in on a little secret: Ferghus and Brigid have a daughter named Ròs, who readers will meet in The Once and Future Love. While writing this three-year-old character, I fell in love with her spunky charm. Almost as soon as I published the book, I started to write sentences, and sometimes paragraphs, about this little girl. Eventually, the ideas became dreams, and those involved an almost twenty-year jump in time. I asked myself, what’s the worst thing that could happen to Ròs? What would irritate Ferghus more than anything else? The answer to that has become a new WIP: The Heart of Ròs. This will be a spin-off novella that I hope to publish before the end of 2024. And you are the FIRST to know!
I’ve heard a rumour that you’re pretty busy.
In addition to writing and teaching, I also offer professional beta reading and editing services, as well as book promotion on the X platform. The latter is often booked a few weeks in advance, so I recommend that if an author requires an experienced marketer, they contact me on X (Twitter) or Fiverr and add their name to my queue. When a space opens up, I can book them in for one, two or three-week promotional packages. My gig involves shouting out their book to my 94K followers, as well as helping authors run advertisements on the platform to increase the number of eyes on their work.
Thank you so much, J.G. Wishing you all the success with The Future Bride series.
The Once and Future Love
https://mybook.to/TheOnceAndFutureLove
Twitter (X)
https://twitter.com/jgmacleodauthor
Fiverr
https://www.fiverr.com/s/arp8Eg
Website
J.G. MacLeod is the Canadian author of The Future Bride series, Abalone, A Moment in Time and The Adventures of Lady Ellen Montagu series.