Next Story Idea

After two days of frustration I finally figured out, at least at a high level, my next story. Sometimes it's best to just step away from the computer and everything else and go with old-fashioned paper and pen. I found a quiet place to sit and just let thoughts, questions, and ideas drift around in my head, writing all of them down as I went.

As I did this the story started to unfold. Not in any detail, but enough to keep me motivated on this next story and actually do some research into it. The sad part is, that there isn't much readily available on HUMINT (human intelligence) or the Intelligence Community as a whole. And, oh my gosh, if you read some of the information that is listed on sites it is so convoluted and indirect you can't even figure out what they are actually saying.

No fear. This morning I woke up and had the storyline more clearly outlined in my head. So today my job will be do try and write a rough outline and more than likely write chapter 2. I'm one of those writers who really can't outline more than a couple of steps ahead. Believe me, I've tried.

I think someone should come up with a good outline template for a romantic-suspense novel. Not just the Beginning, Middle, and End stuff you see all over the place.

Anyway, I'm to plan, outline, write, and do more research. If anyone has suggestions on good sites on HUMINT collection, feel free to post a comment here.

How do you write?

In my previous post I mentioned something about being a "seat of the pants" writer. What exactly does that mean? It means I can't outline for the life of me.

With my first book, IT HAPPENS IN THREES, I never even considered outlining the story. It was more of a spewing of thoughts and ideas that came out into a romantic suspense. And when I say, "spew", I mean whatever popped into my head is pretty much what came out on paper.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Most writers would probably agree that writing anything is better than writing nothing. Maybe.

With my second novel, I wrote the first chapter while on a plane flight from New Hampshire to Seattle, Washington. Again, I had nothing written down for the story idea. I simply was inspired and started typing on my little laptop. Seven pages into it I was cracking myself up and the guy sitting next to me thought I was a little whacked. [SHRUG] I probably was. When you're in the zone you can't help yourself. Anyway...

After I started this book I decided to take a stab at writing an outline. And I even saved it on my computer. I outlined about 10 chapters. I thought cool, good for me.

BUT when I got into writing more of the story my characters decided to go their own way so my writing diverged from the original outline.

How do you write? Are there any concepts (like outlines or chapter synopsis) or tools you use to help? Share them with us.