This week, many of my fellow romance writers are out in Anaheim, California for RWA Nationals. Lucky ducks.
Me? I’m still living the glam life out here in Northwest GA, which means: four loads of laundry, two screaming (for joy, y’all, for JOY) children, two shedding dogs, not enough coffee in the house, and…
Outlines.
I just finished a rewrite of a sci-fi romance novella which will hopefully be out on sub sometime next month, so it’s time to start outlining/plotting something else. I’m still sort of stuck in the heads of the characters I just finished writing, so I need a buffer before I just dive into another project.
You may have heard writers taking sides in the great Plotter vs. Pantser debates: Which is better? Or not, because it’s really not that much of a debate. Different people work in different ways. Me? I’m pretty solidly a plotter these days, and I can blame THAT on Two in Winter. You see, Two in Winter is a retelling of an ancient Norse myth. I wanted to stick pretty closely to the mythology, so I did THAT by writing an outline and sticking to it. I also found it made the writing process easier: “What am I writing today? Oh, sex… Got it.” It made it easier for me to budget my limited writing time.
So now that I’ve finished rewriting the as yet untitled novella, I am plotting the second of the First Blood books. (I will not call it Second Blood, no matter how tempted I am.) The three First Blood books will be concurrent stories telling of three different romances featuring Queens from three different hives. The first book is already plotted but the other two stories need to be plotted as well, as there will be intersections in all three books since their timelines are concurrent. So, it’s caffeine, outlines, and laundry for me today. (and vicariously following the hashtag #rwa12 on twitter, because yeah… I wish I were there!)
Next week, I’ll be hosting the fabulous June Kramin on the blog, so I hope you’ll drop in with a hello for her! Also, the boy-children go back to school, and I will be celebrating my birthday! To get updates by email, follow the blog!
Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
xoxo,
V