Karen Duvall

Wordcount 10/30: 2357

Bwaahaha! At the rate I'm going, if I keep it up, I'll have this book finished by the end of November. Woo hoo! But that would just be the first draft. Though I edit as I go, there's lots of work left to do after I type the end. Still, it's exciting. I didn't think I'd manage more than 750 words a day, but since work at the day job has slowed down somewhat (2 new design projects came in today), I really can manage to write more than that.

Best of all, though, I'm having fun. This book is coming together much faster than the last one, which tells me the last one had some plot problems. I knew it, but I was in denial. I'm a very determined soul, and that can be to my detriment at times. This book, however, is flying from my fingertips and I'm absolutely loving it.

I'm a semi-plotter, meaning I have a general idea of how the story will lay out, and I have good grasp on the main characters. But each scene I write is organic, linking one to the other, and I'm always surprised by the new twists that arise as a result. This being my seventh book, I focus less on technical issues of craft as they've become automatic, and focus more on tapping in to my creativity. It's amazingly liberating.

I've recognized a technique I've been using for planning out my scenes. I plan them as I write them, always focusing on the viewpoint character's goal to steer how the rest of the scene will play out. I've discovered that if I visualize the goal being a success before writing the scene, it's easier to make the character fail, and fail hard. Suffering characters is, after all, the joy of writing fiction. And we do love to torture our story people. (rubs hands together with evil glee)