Planning Ahead…

So I’ve agreed (in principle, at least) to use this year’s NaNoWriMo to finish The Tree of Liberty and Topheth… and if I have any time left in December, to wrap up In The Widening Gyre as well.

The Tree of Liberty has been giving me particular fits. I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say the whole thing feels like I’ve been swimming through mud. It just doesn’t have that particular urgency to it that I expect it to have. Thing is, I know exactly where this story is going and how the whole series ends, but I’m just sorta stuck right now.

There are two things I’m going to try, beyond just plowing through it in November. One, I want to strip the whole thing back down to outline (and I’ve never outlined a Jefferson’s Road story before), and see if I can’t figure out how to speed things up. The second is an insight my son gave me last night (And I don’t know how he recognized this). In the first two books, my main character, Peter Baird, is primarily reacting to what’s going on around him. He does act and make choices, of course, but he’s essentially a reactive character. In this book, I’ve been using him more as an actor, less as a re-actor (there’s a nuclear joke in there somewhere. Like, maybe that’s why the book has no energy? Guffaw.). So maybe the character himself has been resisting what I’ve been trying to do with him. It’s something to consider, at least.

Topheth is steaming along fine. I should have no real problems finishing it… so long as I can keep the heat on (shameless pun).

In the meantime, I’ve finally started successfully outlining the next Jonathan Munro Adventure. I’ve been wanting to do a story that takes place in Russia called The Music of The Spheres, but until this morning, I just didn’t have a good sense of what happens. But I picked up my pen and paper around 10:00 this morning, and now I’ve got almost six handwritten pages of outline done, with lots and lots of stuff happening that’ll keep it going right on till the end, I expect. This is good, because the second Jonathan Munro book comes out next Spring, and I wanted to have a third one ready to send off to my editor as soon as it does. This will give me a head start for the new year, and I should be able to get the whole thing finished in plenty of time.

So for the rest of the day, I’ll be writing up the outline for The Music of The Spheres, and then tearing into The Tree of Liberty.

As an aside, in a few weeks I’ll be teaching a class on Tuesday nights at the Webster Public Library for how to publish independently. We’ll be meeting in the common area on November 13th and November 20th from 6:30 on. The cost is $20 apiece if you want to attend, but I’ll basically be teaching how to design covers, publish, and promote online. It’s the same material I’m presenting in our homeschooling co-op, just taught in two, two hour sessions instead of eight thirty-five minute classes.