Yikes. How can it already be this late on Wednesday afternoon? Yesterday was the Fourth of July, but it felt like Sunday. That means today feels like Monday, but is really almost Thursday and the blog posts on Friday, so I\u2019d best get my rear in gear.<\/p>\n
Yes, yesterday was a holiday, but not for writers working a deadline. I banged away on the next Beau book all day long. I ended my work day at 55%. I know I\u2019ve mentioned before that I count the words at the end of each day. Being at 55% means I\u2019m only 5% from 60%, and 60% is magic because that usually means that the beginning of what I call the banana peel in each book. That\u2019s the part where, for readers and writers alike, it\u2019s tough to put the story down because everybody wants to get to the end.<\/p>\n
For me the process of creating a book is divided into three parts. The first 20% is usually the most difficult. That\u2019s where I need to introduce the characters to the readers. There are the new characters who are specific to whatever book I\u2019m writing. Then, because I write series, I need to bring all the ongoing characters into the picture as well. This is a tricky process, not unlike walking a tightrope. I have to introduce on-going characters in a way that allows readers new to the series to feel at home while not boring long time readers to tears. Yes, I know from blog comments that at least on of my longtime readers doesn\u2019t appreciate those little recaps.<\/p>\n
The middle of the book from 20% to 60% is like slogging through mud or the sandy dry riverbed of the Hassyampa River on a hot June day. The latter is a sure ticket to heatstroke. Don\u2019t ask me how I know. That\u2019s when I\u2019m putting the pieces together and figuring out who did what to whom. Since I\u2019m not an outliner, that\u2019s how I find out about the story\u2014by writing it; by telling the story to me.<\/p>\n
When I hit 60% it\u2019s time for a long, deep breath. By now the what\u2019s happened has come into focus and being in that critical last 40% means it\u2019s time to get to the resolution\u2014to unmask the bad guy and put him or her out of business. That\u2019s what usually happens in what I call the crashing climax. In Nothing to Lose, I had no idea that would involve Twinkle Winkleman literally driving her International Harvester straight through the locked security gates at a municipal airport. That really was a crashing crashing climax. (My grammar checker is busily pointing out that I\u2019ve just used the same word twice in a row. Too, bad, Siri. As far as I\u2019m concerned, autocorrect can go to he\u2019ll. And just so you know, Siri didn\u2019t like that one either.!)<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s my Friday morning day brightener. Now it\u2019s time for me to make dinner which will entail warming up leftovers from yesterday. Once dinner is over. I\u2019ll get back to J.P. When I left him last, he was about to have a telephone interview with an important witness. Just so you know, he\u2019s not all the way there yet, but he\u2019s on the right track.<\/p>\n
Hope everybody had a great Fourth of July!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yikes. How can it already be this late on Wednesday afternoon? Yesterday was the Fourth of July, but it felt like Sunday. That means today feels like Monday, but is really almost Thursday and the blog posts on Friday, so I\u2019d best get my rear in gear. Yes, yesterday was a holiday, but not for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-Ju","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2820"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2822,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2820\/revisions\/2822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}