Pantsing Vs Plotting

This is a dilemma I face each time I start a new book. My brain says, “Sit down, plot it out.” But my heart says, “Just go with it, you'll be fine.”

As, I'm not known for my reasonable approach, I inevitably start typing away. About halfway into chapter 3 I no longer recognize my MC and have no idea who this cast of hoodlums are that are following his/her every move. Then I'm stuck....

Do I go back and start over? Or do I incorporate these ballsy bullies who've butted their way in? Well, you've probably already guessed, I write them in. After all, what fairy story doesn't need a one-eyed psychopathic demon-eater with morning breath and a hankering for milkshakes?

And all is fine for a few more chapters.... But once I'm forced to start tying everything altogether, I run into massive roadblock. Boulders are dropped from cliffs, cars crushed beneath and my fairy has sprouted demon horns and developed a madness for poltergeist sherbet. Don't ask...

When all this happens I can't even remember where the story was supposed to go in the first place. Sigh :( Which is where I find myself now. My current WIP, a YA Dystopian is running amok on me. I've tried spanking her back on track, but she'll just have none of it. While this one, I made a flimsy outline of the plot, (spent nights obsessing right before falling asleep and tucking it safely into one corner of my manic brain) I seem to have taken a wrong turn or six.

It's not that I don't like where I am, I absolutely love the story. But I'm on the down slope and the climax is growing instead of diminishing. Is that a good thing? Will my Ezra blow up One Globe or will her rapidly expanding love for both the baby in her belly and the gun-boned ghost from her past slow her down? I don't know! I just don't know...

Drop me your dilemma. Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Still looking for a good match on a YA critique partner, help!

I'm an Idiot, But You Probably Already Figured That Out

It's been an awesome week of writing, but I must apologize for not blogging. So now that that's been said, I owe one more apology. The amazing, the stupendous, the remarkable, (yeah even I'm gagging) the perfect blogger that I can no longer find, sent me one of those seriously sweet blog awards and being the numbskull that I am, I can't locate it. So, I'm sorry.

Getting back to the promise I made to humiliate myself for your amusement, I'm
posting the first and last sentences of the first five chapters of BLAZE, my 2010 NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month AKA November) story.

Please be gentle as the goal is to write a novel with a minimum word count of 50,000, and it was mission accomplished. The rest is self-explanatory.

BLAZE is a completed, unedited YA Romantic Fantasy at 66,500 words.


Chapter 1

1. Don’t call Captain Thorton please, just this once, just this year, can’t we skip it?
2. Super crapola, the rest of the handkerchief crowd was headed her way, rheumy eyed and ready for a good cry to salve their conscious.

Chapter 2

1. “What’s up Wheels? Or should I say Mazel Tov?”
2. Shouldn’t she happy for them?

Chapter 3

1. The gate screeched as Blaze pushed the rusty hinges to their breaking point and slipped through the gap into the overgrown brambles.
2. He sent the other half of his soul out after her, but as usual it sang to empty air.

Chapter 4

1. Blaze’s yard was swarming with police officers as she ran up and her stomach fell through the sidewalk, the flowers in her gut turning into liquid acid.
2. And she continued running until she was safe inside the walls of Athens High and halfway to her locker.

Chapter 5

1. Wheels’ locker was below and to the left of Blaze’s and he was already there as she arrived out of breath and frazzled.
2. He’d be ready and waiting when they knocked on his door.

The chapters in this novel are very long and will undoubtedly be cut in half when I actually start editing it. But for now, I can see the plot following through by the first and last lines. So, even though I'm very proud of this one, it will be salvageable when the work I'm on finally gives me a rest.

Now that I've been baring my soul, I hope a few of you, will follow suit and let me know where I can read them. I will be taking a week's vacation at the beach with my darling perfect pixie of a granddaughter, but I will check in.

Happy writing!

Dadnabit, Dog Gone it, and Damnation…or Dystopian

Things I say when I smash my thumb or my darling doesn’t finish the job adequately. But that’s probably TMI.

I have the perfect dystopian novel plotted out, but it’s not coming out on paper the way I see it. (When I say plotted, I refer the jell-o bouncing around in my brain.) My MC is boring; she’s flat, unattractive and scared of her own shadow. So how in tarnation is she going to save mankind?

I’ve tried a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting with her, and while she’s down on her knees, she doesn’t seem to be praying, she’s still pathetic. I’m currently considering an ALICE IN WONDERLAND move and in the spirit of the Queen of Hearts, “Off with her head”.

Here’s another issue with the plot, (yes that junk in my head) I have her getting raped by a descendant of the most hated man in America. Is that too much for a YA novel? The rape scene isn’t graphic and the only reference to the origins of the surname is the surname itself.

Does that make any sense?

Okay a few more issues… The opening scene she’s just started her period, sounds gross right? But it’s integral to the story. Oh crap, maybe I’ll just toss the bloody thing and start over.

D is for damnation! I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t.