Moving Forward

Well, I sent a new manuscript, along with a proposal out yesterday. It was a book I'd intended to be very short and quickly written, and it wound up taking me four months.

Part of that had a lot to do with me getting a bit burned out on it just as I was near the end, and I think it's because I took several weeks off in the middle of production. That's a habit I have to break. I need to stay with a story while it's intense and moving in my head, because when I let it sit and idle, I tend to loose it. Then it takes me days, sometimes weeks to get back to it.

I am one of those when I write that I would be called a "Pantser." While I am doing more general plotting of stories, it still amazes me the little things that come up as I'm writing, the plot threads that I didn't see when the initial idea came to me.

A perfect example of that was in A Darker Trinity. There's a scene where Templar Knight Liam is assisting the vampires in the story, and he starts writing charms in the air. That was one of those things that I didn't plot, hadn't seen, never even imagined. I mean, I would have never come up with that on purpose--my big, strong, gruff Liam drawing wards of protection? Not something I could ever see Liam doing.

It may be a small thing, but that little element unlocked a few other ideas in my head at the time, stuff that would make the entire universe better. So I was thankful, but it was an element I'd never considered.

So in that respect, I'm a pantser, but in the most generic term, I'm also a plotter, since I usually know the entire story arc when I start. Of course, I have to say, that much isn't hard, because I write romance stories, and let's face it, I do happy endings, so I know it's all going to work out in the end.  It could take a book or two, but I do get there.