I’m quite focused on writing at the moment. My brain is starting to work at its normal pace, there are a lot of balls in the air and no notes to keep me on track. Why’? Because it happened suddenly. The notes, scenes, I’d hand written are no longer relevant. It’s not what I thought was happening in the story.
I had to drag out my police ledger. It has lists of names organised by book. I was looking for survivors. Yes, you read that right. I was looking for survivors that had initials after their names and not the words ‘bad guy’. What type of initials? ARW, SAS, USAF, SWAT and a few others. 🙂
Why do I need them?
Can’t tell you. I just do. Or more importantly someone within [Foxtrot Mike Lima] needs them. I didn’t see it coming but it makes sense to me now.
The story has three first-person characters and one third-person limited character. Why?
Again, I can’t tell you.
Suffice to say that’s how needs to be to tell this story.
It also needed to start with a new person/third person limited and four chapters before what I thought might have been chapter one. That does occasionally happen when I’m writing.
I start with the first scene I see and it’s not always the first scene of the story, it’s just that that character wanted me to see something. This time I had a bunch of chapters written before I knew I had to go back and start earlier to make it fall into place. (Fifteen or maybe seventeen before I knew for sure I had to go back.)
Welcome to my brain, it will tell you NOTHING, but it all makes sense to me. 🙂
[FML] is over 33k now. The last two days saw 7k flop into the manuscript like caught fish.
And I am enjoying the process although it is tiring.
Currently getting quite cross with Siri and my HomePod that persists in being a pain in the arse. It constantly drops the radio station I like and tells lies. The last lie was “I’m trouble connecting to the internet” so I immediately ran a wifi speed test: Download 302.08 and upload 98.28. There is nothing wrong with the internet.
The other thing is says is “There is a problem with Apple Music.”
More lies. The problem is TuneIn most often. Although this morning it’s both TuneIn and iHeart radio … the problem is the HomePod!
Photo: a page from my ledger. Do you know which book these people were in?
Cat Connor 
Don’t you just love it when the brain starts to come unstuck so that you can let a story flow? I know I’m always happy when that happens. I know what you mean, though, about the story not being what you thought it would. The very same thing happened to me when I was writing Downfall. It was a lot better for me just shutting up and letting the characters tell me their stories.
Sometimes I think we’re our own worst enemies! 🙂 🙂
Oh, we are! 🙂