Almost Finished (with the first draft)

I can’t believe it! I should be finished with the first draft of Kringle on Fire today! I thought I’d never get here!

I’ve been suffering through the worst case of writer’s block since I started writing. It started with me trying to write a steamier romance, Walk Through Green Fire, and then stalling out in the first chapters because I was getting antsy about writing sex scenes. It continued through Avatar of the Maker, which stalled out because I couldn’t figure out whether the female main character was pregnant (yes, she is, I finally decided.) Then I failed NaNo for Kringle on Fire because of my dad’s dying.

I’ll be done with Kringle on Fire today — sort of. There’s going to be a lot of editing. There’s not enough description, there’s refinement of language that needs to happen, there’s seeing if everyone is in character (but that’s one of my strong points), there’s making sure continuing characters and places from the previous book are correct. I’m thinking another month of editing ahead of me.

I have plenty of time. This book will go live in October as part of the Kringle Chronicles series. Look for it on my Kindle bookshelf,

Hurray! The Writer’s Block is Gone!

I have been struggling with writer’s block so badly that I have to push myself to write 1000 words a day, which is about half of what I write when I’m not struggling.

But these past three days I have been writing! Up to 2000 words a day with the words flowing through my fingertips and two, maybe three, chapters gone through. Hallelujah, I might even complete this book!

The book I’m working on is the next Kringle Chronicles book, Kringle on Fire. The characters are a single mom and a firefighter, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t go the way most of those books go. I try not to write stereotyped, overly built firefighters and damsels in distress. Just like I like to include sardonic old ladies, gamers, a group of somewhat clueless frat boys, a sympathetic Karen, and the Kringle Society.

I better get back to writing.

I’m plotting!

I’m doing more plotting on November’s Kringle book (now tentatively called Kringle on Fire) than I have done on any book up till now. This is evidence that it hasn’t truly grabbed me yet, so it concerns me. The process is usually easier than this, with my characters and plots developing organically during discussions with my husband.

There are benefits to plotting a book, especially if one uses a framework like Save the Cat! or Romancing the Beat. You can find information on these online. One can also find derivatives of Save the Cat! and Romancing the Beat as Scrivener templates. The templates have significant advantages for writers and readers. Writers use someone else’s research to develop the story in a way that makes sense and the structure takes away a big concern when editing. Future readers can find the peaks and troughs of the plot where they expect.

Because I want to write this book for NaNoWriMo this November, and be part of a worldwide group of writers, I’m going to have to write however I can. That, in this case, means plotting.