I'm Back To Working On Multiple Romance WIPs—But There's A Twist This Time...

One of my goals for the new year was getting focused in my writing.

Keeping myself to one audiobook and one print or eBook at a time and prioritizing working down my current TBR over adding new reads to it rather than having five current reads at once.

Sticking to a single fiction project and getting the first draft of A Tided Love finished before returning to Bound to the Heart if that's what I was feeling at that point or starting something entirely new during the rest period between the first draft and the first round of edits.

A few months in, and that's gone out the window. Defenestrated and then some.

Because, friends, I've started another romance WIP.

Yes, I'm still working on A Tided Love. For one thing, I know my writing group would riot if I kicked Giles to the curb. But it's also the story that feels like "the one" in terms of publishing. There's a long way to go before we get there, but something about this project feels the most ready in a way that my others haven't yet. I can't quite explain it.

However, I've been feeling a tad stuck with A Tided Love lately. Maybe it's because the umpteenth reworked outline is obsolete, or because I'm still learning how to Pants after years of trying to cram myself into the Plotter parameters. I've been making some progress, thanks in part to a writing exercise I've devised inspired by Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup helping me tap into my characters' interiority. It's felt rather slow-going.

Meanwhile, I had a story idea that I can't shake despite my efforts to put it on the back burner until the right time came about.

Except, there will never be a "right time."

So, yeah, I started another romance WIP—this time, there's a twist.

It's a contemporary romance.

Specifically, a contemporary football romance. 🏈

For the time being, it's called Project Scrimmage. The story follows Liam, a quarterback bouncing back from a lackluster season, and Courtney, an escape room game master by day and streamer on her day off.

I read a decent bit of contemporary romances, but haven't attempted to write until now (if you're new to the blog, I write historical romance). It's also first-person present tense, which is also new to me.

The story centers around a fictional football team, the Augusta Wolves; I want to tread carefully where the NFL is concerned. For one thing, I don't think I can actually say "Liam plays for the Falcons" or "Liam is on the Dolphins" without getting into some sort of legal debacle. One thing I realized when listening to the audiobook for The Wrong Game by Kandi Steiner last year is that IRL NFL teams can be mentioned in passing (the book prominently features the Bears), but it's probably wise to avoid naming players outright. In The Wrong Game, she mentions the Bears are playing the Bills that week but doesn't outright say Josh Allen threw the ball; it's just "their quarterback" when it's the Bills and "our running back" when it's the Bears. For one thing, using their likeness in a work of fiction can cross into murky territory, which I touched on in this post.

It also keeps the story from feeling too locked-in to its time. If I were to say Josh Allen and Drake Maye are playing against each other this week, it gives a time frame that the story is set in, and I'd worry that it would feel dated a few years down the line if one or both of them are retired by that point, or if Maye were traded to another team, making the mention of that Bills-Patriots game outdated.

I also just like the idea of a Maine-based team. I dunno, ✨vibes✨?

As for Courtney, readers of the blog know that I've been working at an escape room for just over two years now. In a way, it's writing what I know, but it's also giving me a bit of a challenge because I don't want to (and in some respects, can't) pull the curtain too far back. It's also appealing to me because I haven't seen escape rooms used in romance. It's usually a horror thing—with the game masters like yours truly being the villains who are sealing the protagonists in a death game!

That being said, I've been having so much fun laying out the escape rooms where Courtney works! It's already given me even more of an appreciation of everything that goes on even more behind-the-scenes than I am.

Project Scrimmage is also giving me a chance to dive into tropes I haven't explored in my historical fiction projects yet, like long-distance relationships and small-town romance.

On a tangent, I've noticed a lot more references to Taylor Swift in football romances. A lot of writers already love her, but the homages have become even more frequent since she and Travis Kelce first got together. I'm not that much of a Swiftie, but I am feeling inspired by that.

You might already know I'm a Bengals fan. You know who else is a Bengals fan? Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees. As a Bengals fan and a 98 Degrees fan, it feels extra fitting to slip a 98 Degrees reference somewhere into this project.

And, hey, maybe the research I'm doing for this WIP will give me a leg up in my fantasy football league.

(I mean, probably not, considering I'm the kiss of death and literally renamed my team to The Final Destination because it's where my guys' NFL seasons go to die painful, laughable deaths—I mean, TURF TOE!?!?! C'mon!!—but I digress).

I'm only a little bit of the way into Project Scrimmage, and I'm Pantsing my way through this one so I couldn't tell you how close I am to finishing the first draft, but I've enjoyed having this sidequest of a WIP. I do plan to publish it eventually, likely taking the self-publishing route and using a different pen name to keep this—and any other contemporary romances, should inspiration strike out of the blue again—differentiated from my historical romances.

And, much to my delight, I feel like A Tided Love is picking up speed again, too. Sometimes, all you need to get the gears turning again is shifting gears entirely.