First let me say upfront that I find starting a book to be the most difficult part of the process. What drives that? Stone cold fear. Fear that I can’t possibly do this. Fear that this will be the project that verifiably proves that I have no talent and I have just been fooling publishers, editors and readers all along. I’m like a dog or a cat circling the pillow trying to figure out if they will lie down and in what position they will do so. Once I type that beginning sentence and once I get to the first paragraph down I’m generally fine.
As I’m getting rolling on EVIL TIMES the second volume in my Imperials saga a couple of things have presented themselves. First my male protagonist is a really angry guy and it’s not much fun to write him. I feel like I’m sipping his anger and it’s affecting my mood in the real world.
Second, that the first part of this book really seems to want to be about my female protagonist which is very different structure then I had on book one where I pretty much alternated scenes between Tracy and Mercedes. For the moment I’m going to go with the flow and see how this works. That’s the great thing about writing — the rewriting. Or as I sometimes say — “I’ll fix it in post.”
