So, I’m now 78,730 words into The Baby and…it’s weird. Unlike with The Wedding, there is no structure. Time is flowing sometimes and dragging at others. I had a specific timeline for things to happen and my bloody characters won’t follow it. Now I sit 17 weeks into the 40 weeks the book takes place over with nothing planned for the back half of the book.
It’s very strange, I guess we’ll see what happens because I am very much this trope. That being said, The Baby is funny. Like, really funny. It’s almost the perfect antidote to how heavy and tense (and fricking perfect!) The Wedding ended up being. I do love it. People have had a lot to say to me about Sebastian, he’s an interesting character.
I was talking with a friend about this the other day, if you went straight from The Album into The Baby, it would be completely and utterly unbelievable. Without The Wedding to give you more of an insight into what Sebastian is really like beneath the exterior of the rock star god who sleeps with any woman that crosses his path, you couldn’t believe that he could be anything more.
I adore his friendship with Heather in The Wedding. I also really loved writing about a heroine who had been with the band for so long that she never sees them as “rock stars” because they were only ever her friends. It’s actually really fun to juxtapose her with Lita in The Baby who is a big fan and actively involved in the Cruise Control fandom. Getting to hear about the events of the previous books from the perspective of someone who watched it happen from the outside looking in, but who is also now very much on the inside of that fishbowl and discovering that it’s not as fun as it seems.
I think that I need to stay away from reviews. They’re not good for me. The Album dropped to 4.0 stars on Goodreads today and is now 3.7 stars on Amazon. This means, of course, that I think it’s completely and utterly shit. I kind of want to re-write it, entirely. I hate it and I used to love it. I feel a bit like it lets the series down because The Wedding is so good and The Baby…I don’t know. I love it but I think I can see some places where I let Ariana down.
Anyway, just going back to writing some of The Baby for a few minutes helped me to feel better. Reviews are not my friend. Now, time to see where this story takes me, I guess!
