Scandal Update

I usually know when the writing isn’t right–I’ll get stuck in a scene. As in… pretty damn stuck, no moving on with the next chapter, no inspiration, no conversations in my head. The characters just stop speaking. It’s like they’re all standing there, arms crossed and glaring: It’s not right! Go back and fix it!

I spent the past twelve days on the same scene. Yeah. Ugh. And it’s frustrating because I have this timetable in my head about how many words I need to write meet my word-count goal for the week.

But I’ve learned to pay attention to “stuck.”

Stuck is my intuition (or my furious muse), telling me I didn’t hit the mark. That I ran off on some damn tangent or neglected the “why did she do it” part or something else. I have to go back and rewrite, then rewrite again until the voices switch back on in my head and the next scene starts to flow.

My way of working goes against some advice. A lot of authors write out the first draft as one big hot mess and then go back and edit. I’ve done that, in fact, the first three books in the Enforcer series were written that way since they were part of one larger story. I sent them for developmental advice and worked on the rewrites and it was a tremendous learning experience for me.

Now I write until I get stuck. Each day, I reread the previous scene to put myself mentally back into the story, and often, I will make revisions at this point. If the internal logic is there, the next 1000 words start to flow.

But if I get stuck… I don’t follow the advice that says, skip over it and fix it later. I need to figure out what is “off” because it’s enough to totally screw up the next several scenes, and fixing 1500 words is a lot easier than rewriting the last half of a book.

I’m at the 55-65% mark with Scandal. And I have the book cover–no reveal yet. I want to get the draft finished, do a first read-through, and not get ahead of myself. But it’s a gorgeous cover. Can’t wait for you to see it.

Here’s the WIP on the blurb, and I’m sure it will change several times before the final version. But let me know what you think:

The same scandal blew up my life–twice. It’s about to blow up my life a third time. Connor Lange. Powerful, wealthy, embattled. He came to me for help. He had trouble written all over him. I should have said no. Instead, I said yes.

(Actually, the blurbs and book descriptions are harder to write than the darn books!)And THANK YOU for all the continued support, encouragement, and reviews. You all amaze me and I am grateful.