First, writing is hard. And slow. I've been writing my current novel two years now. I'm nearing the end (I hope) but I know I have a least one more round of editing and beta readers, before I begin the process of publication.

Here are some more things I've learned about the writing process:

1. So much of a book changes. I took my time in my first draft, thinking that would lessen the editing later, but so much still changed in drafts 2 and 3. Pacing, plot tangents, the story world, characterization. There's more I'll change in draft 4.
   
2. It's hard to portray the balance of your character's traits. (It gets easier after draft 1, when you get to know them better.) Most of my characters in Beyond the Mountain (YA fantasy) are uneducated, and I struggled to make their dialogue sound right. I wanted informal without making them sound stupid, and also without sounding too modern. And I wanted my main character scared but not a fraidy cat, grieving but not a cry baby, pushing forward but not just brushing her grief away like she's over it now.
3. It's both fun and frustrating to filter your language through the confines of the story world. In an equatorial setting (like in Beyond the Mountain), "ice cold" and "everybody froze" don't work. No one in the empire have never experienced ice. Likewise, they can't throw a wrench in the works or touch base or put someone six feet under. This forces me to create more original turns of phrase--it's fun, but sometimes a challenge.
4. Research can be hard, at least for my pre-industrial, equatorial world. For example, information about plants often revolves around the seasons (which are very different in the tropics--no summer, spring, etc.), and I find little on how certain herbs are made into traditional medicines, how well/fast they work, etc.

Some things I've learned about myself specifically:

1. I like grey. Charcoal, ash, smoke. Partly I like grey, partly I like those things, partly I like those words. They end up in my writing a lot.
2. I over-research. And get distracted by interesting information. I look up uses for banana plant fibers, and before I know it I've spent an hour reading how banana beer is made.
3. I'm a perfectionist. Even when I know there will be later drafts and edits, I struggle to get words written. I spend too long agonizing over the perfect word choice.
4. It's tough to choose between insignificant options. Should this tiny house have two rooms, or just one? Should the city have walls and gates? Would the poorer sections of town have pointed roofs, or flat roofs where residents can cook/hang laundry/grow plants? Overall (unless I happen to write a sequel where having a city gate or not could be important) these things don't really matter, but I agonize.
5. I like things to be accurate. Or at least plausible. It always bothers me in movies and books when characters do impossible things. Not so much when Legolas runs up falling rocks midair--because that's obviously a silly liberty for entertainment's sake. But more subtle things, like a castle lit with torches that: A) last more than a couple hours, B) light the whole room/hall, and C) don't produce any smoke. My work in progress is fantasy, so I have a bit of liberty in historical accuracy vs. anachronism, but I still want everything to be realistic and plausible.
6. I love worldbuilding. Most fantasy I've read is kinda-sorta based on medieval Europe. But the more I research other places, times, and cultures, the more excited I get about possible worlds for future books. Sometimes I get most excited over mundane details of the everyday lives of everyday people.

What I've learned about the world:

1. As a writer, I know every character is the hero in his/her own story. Even the bad guy. I as the author have to know why he is the way he is. Turns out, he's also the hero of his own story.
   
   That means in real life, every person is the hero of his/her own story. People (usually) aren't just out to be jerks. They've been through stuff you don't know about, and were raised a certain way, and have experienced different relationships and successes and disappointments than you have. That doesn't excuse them (or you) for acting like jerks, but you don't know everything about them. They have their own side of the story.
2. The world is full of story ideas. Since everyone is the hero of his own story, and everyone has problems they deal with, even everyday people with first world problems can spark a story readers identify with. Paying attention to relationship complexities and personality quirks and worldviews can help you in your writing. But even if you're not a writer, when you get to know different sorts of people (different in culture, wealth, sex, religion, tastes, physical limitations, emotional health, whatever) you start to realize that people are at the same time A) more alike than you thought, and B) more varied than you thought.

Yesterday I sent my last chapters of Beyond the Mountain to my first beta reader. (Ideally, I would've sent the whole book at once, or at least sent the sections closer together, but I mis-guessed how long it would take me to finish this draft.)

After a few beta readers have read and commented, I'll have at least one more draft and another round of beta reading. But for now I'm setting the story aside and keeping an eye out for the next. Whatever story I write, I'm going to take at least 3 months mentally outlining it and researching before I write down anything more than my brainstorming. I'm going to go into this one with a plan.

Writers often say they don't have trouble finding ideas, they have trouble deciding which of their ideas to choose and which to ignore for now. But personally I've been having trouble coming up with a plot idea. My best ideas usually come while I'm reading a novel--the premise/situation already exists, but I don't know (yet) how that book will end. My mind brews possibilities, and voila, an idea I can develop into a plot. By the time I have a beginning, middle, and end, it barely resembles the original anymore.

For several months, though, I've been brainstorming for ideas for my next project after Beyond the Mountain is done, without results.

About two days ago, this saying came to mind, and has stuck in there. (Unfortunately, I already can't remember how it came about.) I thought a novel theme could be, "Is it stronger to perservere, or to break out? (Conversely, is it weaker to go along, or quit?)" In other words, when your life is hard, but changing it would also be hard (or make it harder for someone else), what do you choose? Is it stronger to deny yourself for the sake of others/expectations, or to stand up for yourself?

Also, today I read a novel that gave me a new plot idea. So I'm a little excited about that.

Yes and no.

A coworker introduced me to Audible last year. We're housekeepers who clean lodging units between guests, so we can listen to music or books while we work. I looked up some of the books I was interested in, which ranged from 9 to 12 hours. I thought it was a great idea. How convenient to keep work more interesting, finish books in 2-3 days, and not feel guilty spending all those hours reading in bed.

I've listened to some great ones. The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates by Caroline Carlson is a fantastic series - swashbuckling, hilarious, and piratical, yet still child-appropriate. And the narrator, Katherine Kellgren only improves it.

I've also listened to others ranging from pretty good to decent. Sometimes the narrators are straightforward and a bit bland, but the stories usually keep me interested. So, to start on something positive, here's what I do like about audiobooks:

1. You can "read" while you drive, cook, run, work, sew, wash your car, play Farm Heroes Saga, etc. If it's a book you're already familiar with, you could even have it on in the background without worrying about zoning out and missing something.
2. If it's digital (vs CDs or tapes) you can carry several on a trip without taking up space.
3. You can sync your progress between your smartphone and your desktop app.
4. If you have the both Kindle and Audible editions of a book, you can sync between them on your devices.
5. Sometimes you can buy the Kindle version, and add the Audible version at a steep discount. I've occasionally done so at a lower total cost than if I'd bought only the audio.
6. Audible has a Great Listen Guarantee. You can return a book for any reason within a year of purchase, and they'll refund you, even if you already listened to it. (Also, your first listen on Audible is free.)
7. You can have an Audible account without being obligated to pay for a membership. If you do have a membership, the prices are discounted 30%, and you also get a certain number of book credits a month. For most books, using a credit is cheaper than paying money, but you still have both options. Credits roll over for six months.

Plenty of people like audiobooks. If you're interested, give it a try. It could help you get to all the books you haven't had time for. It could help you enjoy reading again. Or for the first time. As a writer, I hope my future books have audio versions.

But 7 months after joining Audible, I still can't get into it. I can enjoy listening to a book, but it can take me weeks to get through one when it's digital rather than live. At first I thought I just needed to get used to a new format, but for fiction it still feels like a chore. Here are my reasons and speculations why:

1. It's like being led blindfolded by a guide who's trustworthy but doesn't tell you in advance what's coming. In print, I can count pages and see the white space and paragraphs. I can see how far until a scene or chapter break, and know when to start getting nervous for the possible disaster/cliffhanger vs. when I can probably relax. I can read faster through tense parts, faster than you can intelligibly speed up a narrator. An audiobook, on the  other hand, is a long string of words with no organization or breaks.
2. I don't know what romance developments might come up. I think YA books could do without sex anyway, but I especially don't want it to surprise me aloud in front of my coworkers.
3. I like being immersed in the story I'm reading, and nothing else. So when I am listening, it slows down my productivity at work. And it's not like I'm going to listen at home, while I'm doing nothing else, just staring at the wall. Because then I'd just pick up a copy I can read myself.
4. If something distracts me for a minute, or I want to flip back real quick to something in a previous chapter, I have to skip back, hope it's the right place, and listen until the sentence in question happens again (or doesn't). I can't skim pages. If I want to revisit something after I've finished, or quote a passage, I don't want to listen to an entire chapter just to find it.
5. Reviews help me weed through my large to-read list.  However, in Audible you can only rate and review a book currently in your library. That means all the people who didn't like a book and returned it can't leave a review. So how do I know I can trust the mostly positive reviews?

I like the idea of audiobooks. I like their convenience. But sadly I don't enjoy them as much as I'd like.