If you missed the chat at Writerspace last night, there's another chance to chat with me tonight at Coffee Time Romance. I'll be joined by Susan Grant and Robin Owens and we'll be talking about our new books. The chat starts at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific and I know we'd love to see lots of people there!
Yesterday, I was working on my synopsis for the futuristic proposal. It's getting there. I have a little bit to do on the overview of the three books and then I need to do the detailed synopsis of the first book's plot and that'll be done. Of course, I still have to actually write some of the story. This just strikes me as hugely bizarre and wrong that I'm working on the synopsis before the story. That's not the way I usually do things.
But I never spend a great deal of time worrying about stuff like this. An experienced and wise writer told me after I sold my first book that the process will change and don't fight it. It's been the best piece of writing advice I've received because the process seems to change for me on every book. So I'll do the synopsis first then write the pages and hope it all works out.
One of my big problems with the synopsis was solved yesterday when Z finally talked to me. Z is the hero in the third book and both he and his heroine have been very uncooperative. (Which reminds me, his heroine changed her name on me. Again! She's still Jas, but now her last name is Landreaux. Gah! Let's hope this one's it.) So I'm trying to fill in some info about their characters, but I don't know much about them. Then Z started sharing. I didn't believe it was him at first, not really. I mean he's quiet! So I kind of cut him off and talked to Wyatt from Eternal Nights. (Yes, I talk to my characters just like they're real people.) He was of some help, but not hugely, so I asked Flare. He knew things that made me confident that this really was Zach talking to me so I went back and listened to him.
I thought the internal conflict/need to change would be his because of his job--he's a sniper on a Spec Ops team. It's not. Jas is the one who's going to need to change. Z gave me an earful. He was not happy about his heroine. He called her "brain dead." Um, I said, she's an expert on laser technology, she's not brain dead. Then I got a long explanation on why he called her that. The crux of it is that she's so focused on successfully completing her projects (like the laser thing), that she never lifts her head up to see the big picture, to look at how her work affects the world.
Z as it turns out is very much a big picture guy and quite Zen. Or at least very contemplative/meditative. He told me straight out that if I expect him to fall for Jas she was going to need to change--a lot. That she had to think about the consequences of her actions, not mindlessly move forward. He's in the war, behind enemy lines, he sees these weapons firsthand, what they can do to people. He wants her to understand what she's doing too.
It's not that he's opposed to new weapons, he was adamant about that. Z said he's a soldier and he wants this latest damn war over too, but that doesn't mean that the scientists and engineers can go through life brain dead.
He was quite passionate about this. I'm thinking still waters run deep and it would be interesting to see how stirred up he gets about other things.
This was all completely unexpected, BTW. I had zero idea about who Zach was before yesterday. Now I know part of him. And I know his head's screwed on straight--to quote both him and Flare. It has to be, Z assured me, or he couldn't do his job.
So did I bore y'all to death today? This is what it's like inside my head sometimes. Conversations with imaginary people, sometimes arguments with them, name changes, etc, and in the middle of all this, I'm trying to write. :-) TBH, though, I wouldn't trade the noise in my head for anything. I like the characters--even when one or more is being a PITA.
