So as I’m cruising along in the book writing scheme of things, I’ve come to realize I’m a big carrot dangler. When I first started writing BoD – I just wrote whatever scene I wanted when I wanted to…and then fit them into place. A Sliver of Shadow was a little different because I was under deadline and I didn’t want to write it that way.
I wanted to go “in order.” Which became a little more complicated once I realized that the 40k or so I’d written before I sold BoD was going to have to be completely reworked. And reworked. And reworked.
But this third book is more of a clean slate. I don’t really have any preconceived notions about it, except for the basic concept I had to submit for the outline to the publisher. In some ways that makes it easier…but in others it makes things a little harder. I’m a little less sure of where I want to go with this one – and as much as I want to run off and do all the fun scenes that I *know* will happen, I’m forcing myself to keep on where I’m at – partially to give myself something to look forward to, but also to try to make sure my logic is in place before I get there.
There’s nothing quite like writing a truly beautiful scene…and then discovering that there’s no real way it can happen. And sure, part of the fun of writing and creating is that you can mess with your worlds a bit – and that’s fine, but once certain rules are in place it’s more difficult to do so convincingly.
