I got a bunch of short-answer (not essay!) questions from readers recently, so I’m going to do a hit-and-run with some of them! Pamela asks Will we get more Negotiator series books? There’s a faint possibility that in the looooong term the answer to this is yes, but for all intents and purposes, no. :) Deborah asks Of all your books, do you have a favorite character? Yes. :) Kathy asks: Now that Walker Papers is wrapped up, what’s next? Will you continue in the same genre or branch out…
Tag: writing
Reader Questions: Process & Pagecount
Lots of process questions, so I’m going to tuck them together into one and answer different aspects of questions people have asked! Lola & Anne just want straight-up process discussion, which you’d think I’d have covered with the posts for the last couple of weeks, but you’d be wrooooong. :) Then Kat Bonson follows up with How does your writing process work (e.g. do you write specific # of pages a day or is it a hit & miss kind of thing)? How does your agent/editor fit into your process?…
come along, my darling
Yesterday on Moore Street I noticed a man who looked kind of like a blunt-cut, knock-off Michael Fassbender. Good looking, if not as good looking as Fassbender. A minute later Young Indiana wandered several steps away from me and stopped to look at something. I said, “Come along, my darling,” and the Fassbender knock-off turned toward me in slow surprise. I laughed and said, “Wrong darling, sorry,” and off we all went our separate ways. :) I keep trying to make posts and I can’t think of anything to write…
10%, 10%, 10% onward…
I’m working on a short book (the one mentioned in the process post a couple days ago) and have just edged my way past 10%, which is one of those milestone numbers. It’s starting to take shape structurally, too, which is great, because it’s a blueprint for the structure of the rest of the books. And it’s still amusing me, so hopefully it’ll amuse readers too. I’ve also gone off-synopsis already, although the off-ness isn’t relevant to the overall structure; it’s just a nicer/smoother opening than what I’d envisioned. So…
evolving process
Following up somewhat on last week’s process post… Recently on Twitter Tobias Buckell mentioned he was 6K into a 10K synopsis for a 55K book. Kate Elliott chimed in to say that in December, she’d managed 4K a day for 2 weeks straight–far above her usual writing average–due to having a supremely clear idea of what had to happen in the book at that point. I myself have become increasingly aware that the more I outline, the more smoothly the book goes. Particular cases in point were THE PRETENDER’S CROWN,…