I’m still writing on the new book (trust me, you’ll read that sentence over and over for a while yet) and just finished the scene where a group of prodigies of grade school through high school age experience a delicious dinner menu, poor behavior among the adult dignitaries, and a subtle menacing pitch that they can’t quite piece together. I wanted to write a whole chapter on the menu alone, but there’s no time for that.
Writing in the “plantsing” mode (with general ideas but not a complete outline) means that this next section, like all sections, will require the research I didn’t do earlier, which slows me down despite my amazing Google-fu. For example, I look forward to looking up: “all-night restaurants in Krakow Old Town”, “trains from Krakow Glowny to airport”, “planes to Stockholm; Interlochen Center for the Arts; how to say “Do you mind? I’m going to the bathroom” in Polish, preferably more politely than that.
And that’s in addition to plotting a grand escape of sorts that includes waiting in a pierogi shop waiting to not be captured.
This is writing. It’s not at all glamorous, but turning the mess above into a novel is worth it.
Words Like Me 