Girl, reading

Authors Gotta Author, Editors Gotta Edit
What's your writing challenge? Reading pet peeve? Here's my process...

I don't mind writing - but I hate plotting. Heck, I don't know what happens next, and yet it's my job to make it happen. The book will need some bad deeds and unnecessary trouble that could easily have been avoided by me, the author, simply having my character turn left at the book's next fateful intersection. But the demands of plotting force me to have him turn right, and to do so in such a way that my reader doesn't throw the book down because I gave him such a stupid reason for turning right. And THEN I have to write him out of his dilemma. It's like cleaning up spilled soup when you knew darn well the bowl should never have been placed on that tottery table. But I digress...

Clearly, I am not a natural in the field of suspense-fiction authoring. But, about once a decade, I get an idea that won't go away, an idea that needs to be clothed with a plot and some characters. So, for a year or two, I have a strategy: I use the occasions when I find myself awake in the middle of the night to plot. I put my mind into the story I'm constructing, and think as hard as I can at 2 a.m. about what happens next.
The thing about a story is, for the most part you don't forget it. I don't grab my bedside notepad to write down the next plot development. I'll remember it, and add to it the next time too much evening caffeine keeps me up at night.

So eventually, after years, I end up with a book. (I suspect neither Zane Grey nor Barbara Cartland operated this way.)

THEN I get to have fun!
Fun, you might inquire?
Why yes, I would respond - I get to EDIT!

I love to write about writing, and other important topics. You can acquire the books mentioned here - and of course, you should, because they're as much for grown-ups as they are for kids - at MaryCoonsDesigns.com. Click here to get my newsletters, and let me know what you think!

As always, thanks so much for taking the time to read.