One of the many things I enjoy about writing is the ever-existing opportunity to try something new. It could be writing in a different genre, it could be trying to plan a novel (or pantster one) or it could be a new PoV. That is probably why you see me writing in so many different genres. I come up with a story idea and it sort of tells me the genre it belongs in. Scouts of the Apocalypse is a prime example of that. I’d never even considered writing horror before I got that story idea. But my Scouts enjoyed the campfire version of it so much, I knew I had to write it for real. A trilogy of horror […]
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More Writing Adventures – Pantster or a Planner
I know I’ve talked about this before, but it is something that’s been on my mind quite a bit the past couple weeks. Am I a pantster or a planner? The answer, I’ve discovered, is that I’m both. Much like I will write a story in the genre that best fits it, I will also employ either a pantster or a planner methodology as the occasion demands. For example, my first published novel, Mik Murdoch: Boy Superhero, was completely written in pantster-style. There were many reason for that, too. First, I wrote that book as a NaNoWriMo novel, which totally lends itself to pantster writing. Second, it was a story that I had been thinking about for years. I had […]
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False Starts
I will be the first to admit that I was struggling to write the newest Mik Murdoch novel. I had a number of false starts including one where I wrote over 3,000 words before I realized just how slow everything was moving. That got me really thinking about the story and what I wanted to achieve with it. Except, I wasn’t getting any new ideas. I was just regurgitating all the old ideas. Nothing new was coming to mind. Overcoming the Problem I had to tear the story right down to the ground and start again almost from the beginning. The false starts didn’t mean the concept for the story was wrong. Just how I was going about telling it. […]
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Should I be a planner or a pantster for my next book?
Should I be a pantster or a planner for my next book? I have written books using both methods. I’m told the books were good in both cases. So, which method should I use? Mik Murdoch 5 is the next book, in case you were wondering. I haven’t been doing a lot of writing the past few months. I was busy editing The Goddess Renewed for several months and trying to keep my sanity for several more. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about what the next book(s) should be. In the case of Mik Murdoch 5, I know what the main plot is and who the characters will be. The problem shows itself when I try to refine the […]
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