Deep in the Weeds

64,000 words (maybe nine of them good)

(just kidding!)

I sorta remember baseball. Except that's not true. I remember standing in the sun a lot, sitting on the bench waiting to bat a lot, and both 'teams' tromping around in the high weeds looking for the ball. I'm not sure much sport actually got played.

I've got to the point where forward progress just isn't possible until I clear some space on the mental hard drive by going back and putting in some earlier scenes, revisions and extra bits. I kept trying to write what happens next, but my brain kept saying, "Now don't forget, you'll need to set up that last bit with the dancing frogs. Get those frogs in early, drop it in a conversation or something. DOn't forget."

So of course I go to 'drop it in' and find that the convo I've picked alludes to a bunch of stuff that didn't happen anymore, didn't work out that way, or nothing exploded by the end of the scene. (I do write thrillers, after all!) So off into the old side file it goes, and a ten minute job turns into several chapters over several days. My seat-of-the-pants plotting needs the occasional patch, is all.

Funny thing is, I'm having a blast. The extra material is giving the story more of that flavour that it lacked.

It's a bit like cooking for me. Y'see, I'm a seat-of-the-pants cook as well. I make it up as I go, tasting and stirring and generally having a ball until there's food on the table. Or at least, that's how I remember it. The Tiny Dynamo runs a kick-ass kitchen, and my meager efforts just can't compete.

That's just an average dinner! Which reminds me, I haven't had breakfast, yet...

PS. No one tell the Dynamo I can cook. It suits my purposes to have her believe I'd otherwise be standing over the sink eating straight out of jars.