
I'm a pantser. Which means, I don't plot out a book, I just start writing. Don't get me wrong, I have ideas about the plot, I have pretty good ideas about the characters, setting, conflict, mood, and theme. I don't always know what's going to happen next, though. In my current story, Shadow of Death, (or maybe Dust to Dust???), I had to struggle to give myself an antagonist--and I'm not sure I've made him antagonistic enough. Perhaps I need to go back to the start and set him up as a meaner, badder, more deadly opponent. I've been reluctant to do this because I thought it would be fun to have a bit more mystery--with a gradually increasing sense of danger and doom. But modern readers (and editors) like stories to start off with a bang and I'm not sure I've got the time to evolve the story the way I had in mind. I'll have to think about this. The problem with being a pantser is, sometimes you don't know that things are going to work. Why don't I just outline, then? I can outline. I wrote an entire book this way. It was my first book--Love in Terror (no, you haven't missed it. This one has a sort of Shrodenger's existance. It exists on a hard drive on a computer that no longer has an operating floppy drive. If I had stolen the phone box I had when I was at Connectware, maybe I could Cruiser it to my regular PC. Or not.) It worked okay. I followed the outline, mostly. The book got written. But it wasn't much fun and I've had more fun writing books where every day was an adventure.
I did get my ten pages written and had a kiss. If you write romance, it's important that your characters kiss at some point. It's one of those stages of a relationship thing.
I did some more editing on When It's Time To Call It A Day by Anthony Perham and spent some time with my substitute bridge teacher bringing him the teacher guide for the day I have to miss my bridge class. I didn't make any progress in NanoCorporate--maybe I'll be more productive tomorrow.
I'm going to make THE DEAD STAY DEAD by Anthony Perham the www.BooksForABuck.com book of the day. In the second of his English Detective series, Perham writes of a mysterious house that seems to be eating English cops. Detective Inspector Sean Crow doesn't believe in ghosts--but there's definitely something unnatural happening. This entire eNovel is only $3.99. Check it out, read the excerpt, or buy the entire eNovel here: www.booksforabuck.com/mystery/mys_07/dead_stay_dead.html. (Available in HTML, Adobe PDF, Mobipocket, Palm DOC, and Microsoft Reader formats). Here's the cover (cover design by Karen Leabo):
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Rob