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Books Anne has written or has a chapter in.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Feeling accomplished

Sometimes I think I must be one of the world's slowest writers. I have to be in the right mood to make words flow or to see the signposts up ahead that tell me where the story's going. Occasionally even being in the mood doesn't make the chapters get written. Never could be one of those people who sit down at a certain time every day and get up after X number of words or pages have been written.

And research...don't get me started (because I will not know when to stop!). I love researching details to the nth degree, knowing full well that only a small portion of those details will ever make it into the book or story. But the fact that the greater gestalt of fact lives in my head allows me to write a scene for a chapter that rings with authenticity.

So it is with some surprise that I find myself with two long, complex pieces of writing (a novel and a novella) finished and turned in within weeks of each other. I can say now that my next dark fiction novel, The Cornerstone, is scheduled for publication with Journalstone Publishing in February of 2013, and my novella, We Employ, will be part of the LIMBUS shared-world collection due out in November 2012, also from Journalstone.

So now I have time and energy to turn my attention to the second novel in the North Florida Trilogy that I'm co-authoring with P. V. LeForge. We wrote the first version of Museum Piece many years ago, and revisiting it now is almost like reading it for the first time - I have no idea where the plot is headed and even less feel for where it ends, which is a good thing, I think. I'm seeing this story with 21st century eyes and a number of things have changed, from technology to social issues and even our slang and vocabulary, not to mention clothing styles. But underneath all the window dressing, there's a really solid, intriguing storyline and some unique, memorable characters the likes of which I've never met in anybody's novel (although Confederacy of Dunces comes close). Hope we can get this one out by the end of the year... we'll see.

2 comments:

  1. Seeing posts by writers who don't know where a story is going until they get there is very encouraging. I often think: "why should my readers have all the fun being surprised about what happens next?"

    Malcolm

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  2. I usually want the roadmap figured out before I take the plunge, but this last book didn't follow that scheme at all. I had the beginning and the ending and one chapter somewhere in the middle written at least a year before I started filling in the rest. Not my favorite way to write, but somehow it worked!

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