What are the VIBES of my new novel?

Hi fellow travelers,

Lots of updates soon to come—yes, including the conclusion of the story that has now left you on a cliffhanger not one but two times!

But for this week, just a quick behind-the-scenes look at what I’m actually, you know, writing. Contains: vibes.

If you missed my last update about my current novel work-in-progress, you can find that here:

Since hearing back from the professional editor six weeks ago, I’ve had my head buried deep in editing, editing, editing.

It’s been harder than I expected, and I’ve spent most of the time wondering if I’m even making the story better or if I’m just shuffling words around.

But now that I’ve finished my big edits and I’m coming back to work on the detail pieces—the character, worldbuilding, emotion, and yes, VIBES—I’m able to see a little more of how the story really has improved since April.

You see, I’ve been intentionally de-emphasizing worldbuilding and “vibes” in the story until now so that I could focus on getting the core story elements solidified. In fact, in all my various writing projects over the past few years, I’ve been so focused on story fundamentals that I haven’t let myself play very much with anything else.

Even though “vibes” is kind of a silly word to describe it, the tone, atmosphere, and sensory experience of the story really are just as important as the more objective stuff. Especially for a book like H&H where character voice is so key and the world is so symbolic.

As my writing mentors reminded me a few weeks ago, I’ve been writing in a problem-solving mode for a really, really long time. Since about 2018, really (which will make sense to you if you’ve been reading my cliffhanger story installments).

Problem-solving is essential to a professional-quality book. But it doesn’t create the sense of atmosphere and energy (aka VIBES) that really make a story come alive. It’s time for me to relearn how to write by intuition as well.

And few things help me access that raw creativity better than music.

So, today, I thought I’d share with you some of the inspiration for the vibes of this story, as well as a glimpse into my writing process.

Every day, when I sit down to edit, I start by praying, and then I listen to a song from my H&H playlist to get myself “in the zone.”

I used to try multitasking while I listened. I’d open the documents I needed, review what I was supposed to work on, maybe join a writing sprint on the Young Writer’s Workshop.

But I’ve found recently that my writing goes a lot better when I start my routine by just listening to the song with my eyes closed and letting myself imagine.

This helps me experience the story, not just as a skeletal outline or scenes that jerk the characters around like muscles, but as a living organism.

It helps me not just remove problems in the story, but also add touches that make it funnier, more natural, and more human.

Here are a handful of the songs from my H&H playlist:

What expectations do these songs give you for the story? What types of worldbuilding, characters, plot events, and themes, and, you know, VIBES come to mind?

Based on what you’ve heard about H&H, do you have any song recommendations for me? I’m always looking to flesh out my playlist, since I’ve already listened to most of my current songs many, many times.

Aaaaaaand I’ll still need songs to get me through quite a few more days of editing.

But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve already had to push back the schedule for sending the book to my ever-patient-and-flexible Critique Partners. But my new goal is to send it to Critique Partners by the end of June, and that feels doable right now. We’ll see if that’s true or if Jandalf the Green is overestimating her editing speed for the thousandth time!

Thanks for sticking with me on the long road of editing. Come back next week for the final(?) installment in Jandalf the Green’s cliffhanger-ridden origin story!

Adventurously yours,

Jandalf the Green