I was all set to write a post about series, as that’s what I have been giving a great deal of thought to since Sunday, when I finally sat down with this month’s issue of The Writer and read through a few excellent articles on series characters and started thinking about what sort of woman I would write as heroine for a series. And while I’ve come up with some interesting things regarding Lorelei (that’s her name, Lorelei McIllhenney) and the dog she acquires (a 4 month old Great Dane puppy she names Squish), that’s not what I’m going to talk about today.
See, I was doing some self-analysis last night and this morning, and I realized that I have fallen back into old habits–yes, I have relapsed. Remember what I said before about how I’ve been writing for years but I’d get to a certain point and then drop that project to pick up another? Yeah, I have been doing that. Again. The thing I worked so hard on my little behavioral modification program to change. :head desk: I really derailed on my vacation when I realized/decided my premise for HOC wasn’t going to work. I came home, did a little work on that, tried in vain to find SOMEONE in the FBI or retired who would be willing to answer some questions. And then I put it down and picked up Til Death. Got to a point on that and it wasn’t gelling, so put that down. Then Angel died and I put down my pen entirely. After that I started planning out and fully plotting Without A Past-which was intended to be her story (since all of my books have dogs–it’s a thing with me). And starting Sunday I derailed that and went off on this tangent of thinking about a series–something I never planned to do. I was telling Pot this morning that I haven’t really written since the beginning of April. It’s almost like I’m afraid to put words down on paper, so I’ve actually fallen back on plot and characterizing in lieu of actual writing. There’s also an element of…irritation with HOC. Like a popcorn kernel stuck in my gums that I just can’t quite get out. It’s as if I can’t really, seriously work on something else until I get this story completely out of my system.
So I went back and looked at my Google Notebook on HOC this morning at the team premise I had envisioned as a possible solution to my problem. I wasn’t fully happy with how I had it set up, but suddenly as I was looking at it, it occurred to me how to fix it. Kensie is now a profiler and worked in the basement at Quantico (I think that’s where the Behavioral Analysis Unit is). Her partner Malachi transferred down to the Jackson field office, as it was closer to his family in Georgia. He works with the Evidence Response Team there. So the book will now open with the wedding (no longer Wyatt and Marin’s wedding from TD as I don’t think I will get TD written first), move on through to Kensie finding the body in her cabin, the local authorities are notified, she offers her assistance as profiler and calls in Mal and the Jackson ERT unit because this bears remarkable resemblance to a case she and he worked before. I think that fixes all my believability holes. May or may not be how it actually works, but I think it’s plausible and I’m comfortable with it.
Which means…guess what…I’m going back to start writing HOC from the beginning again! My husband is perfectly disgusted by this, as he thought the last version was just fine and should be shopped. While there is a certain part of me that is never going to be happy with the finished product and could rework it until the end of time, there were some serious flaws with the last finished draft and correcting them is going to make the book more marketable and likely to be picked up by someone. That’s just realism. And as I’d like to, you know, make a career of this, it’s important to look at marketability and making something the best it can be. It’s only mid-June. If I get started immediately, I can certainly finish by the end of the year.
Ah, the eternal optimist. Until I get rolling again, I think I will set my weekly goal at 5k, which puts me needing around 715ish words a day.
One thought on “A Change Of Plans”
I think we need to be optimistic though, to keep going in this business! Otherwise there’s too many things that could go wrong. Actually, there’s too many things as it is. Without the optimism, though, we’d never bother putting pen to paper.