Category: Feature Stories
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Another fine writing day being mean to my characters
I’m now more than a third of the way through the draft, and I’m right on target with both the word count and the story. The line-for-scene outline holds. The plot is tight, the action is tense, and I had a hard time stopping, because while I know GENERALLY what happens next, I won’t know…
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Second take on Ohio 2 done in first draft
So… I didn’t use a word of the first version of Ohio 2. Even my “and’s” and “the’s” are brand new, and fresh and sparkling. NOW, HOWEVER… the novel sits for a week or two or maybe three while I outline Ohio Three. Ohio Three will also be brand-new. I won’t even be reading the…
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Last day of the year… and about ready to get back to work
It hasn’t been the best year in my life. It hasn’t been the worst, either. I wrecked four first drafts of my Ohio Series (books two through five) by exuberatant pantsing. After a longish Think Week and some time spent away from fiction writing and away from deadlines, I’m rested and ready to go through…
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Civilization Versus The Full-Body For-Keepsies Panty Raid… and The Survival Value of ADD
When I was a kid and my family lived on the western tundra of Alaska, my dad took me hunting and fishing with him. We were bringing in food for the table in a place where agriculture was impossible. I loved tagging along and helping out. I was nine, so for hunting I was just…
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Replotting Ohio 2… The Experiment that Went BOOM!
Book 2 has a lot of salvageable material. A lot of awesome world stuff, some wonderfully funny scenes, some pretty scary scenes. It was fun for me to read, and I made myself laugh a bunch of times, got a little teary-eyed, did a light revision and passed it off to my Editor. Matt, however,…
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Still replotting, still restructuring on Ohio 3
There’s damn little I’m going to be able to save. Ohio 3 is lost in the weeds. So at this point, I’m barely even looking for things to save. I’m just looking for the story I wanted to tell but didn’t, and if I can use any of what I already wrote, great. If not……
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Here’s that Wrong Left Turn In Albuquerque… and it’s as bad as I dreaded.
The first sixty pages of Ohio 3 held up fine. Starting on manuscript page 61, I went in exactly the wrong direction, dropped the really good local character I had in place for one who broke my otherwise tight worldbuilding through two novels and the start of this one all to shit, threw in a…
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Somebody’s Lying! 1392 words, 65,395 total… and “Too Good to Be True” comes to town
Today was a hoot. Seriously. Yesterday, I left my main in the middle of a situation that could have turned into a nightmare for her. And I saved and quit for the day having no idea how I was going to handle it. Today, though, the last line I wrote yesterday turned out to be…
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Yesterdays revelation became today’s surprising scene
I knew yesterday that I left myself in a good place when I wrapped up the words. I didn’t realize how good until I started rolling this morning. My main character had a massive revelation about the crushing mistake she was about to make, and figured out a way to avert disaster on the upcoming…
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Wow! 1412 words, two hours… And LIGHTNING struck! (Or… “Am I making a huge mistake?”)
I’d written myself into a corner yesterday, and I had absolutely no clue what was going to happen next. See… Brain writes the outlines and the overall planning. Gut, however, writes the words, and Gut — like a willful horse — is entirely capable of getting the bit between his teeth and galloping straight toward…