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 all these ideas of the story arc so it was easy to go without any further planning.
What I have since learned, however, is that writing a series demands planning. How the characters develop, keeping the world they play in consistent and so on all requires some thought. I might be able to get away with Pantster writing for the first book, but after that all bets are off.
I have figured that out over three, going on five series. 🙂
Writing Update
I made the commitment to myself to try and write every day. I gave myself a minimum word goal of 250 words per day with 241 days left in the year. That was nine days ago. So far, I have written every day of the nine and I have exceeded my minimum word count. Some days I’ve written a lot more and some days only slightly above that minimum. As of today, I’m boosting the minimum to 350 words per day.
It has been very good. There were several days where I simply didn’t feel like writing. I was tired after a day at work and it just felt like too much trouble. Except, I knew the commitment was there and I didn’t want to let myself down (I take this self-challenges VERY seriously). So, I grabbed my laptop each night and worked on my craft.
The results? Well, I have owed my co-writer partner (of the Jack Kane series) a chapter for quite a while. I won’t embarrass myself by saying exactly how long. I finished that chapter and feel pretty good about it. In fact, my creative juices were flowing well enough that I now know of a running gag that will appear throughout the next book (currently titled Jack Kane 3 – working title only, I assure you). I’ve also got some awesome ideas to make Mik Murdoch 5 (also a working title) even more of a riveting read.
Have a great week!
