“It” is my next book. While the writing process for Working Stiffs #5 kicked off in December in fits and starts, now that we’re well past the holidays, “it” has officially begun in earnest.
The first order of business for me as a mystery writer is to do the pre-work. IOW, the writing leg-work. News stories often fill my head with plot ideas. Then, it’s sift and sort time — time to play the what-if game, and head out on a direction with one or more of those ideas. To do that I typically sit at my kitchen counter with a writing tablet and scribble. I call it noodling. My husband calls it drinking coffee and staring into space, probably because more often than not, that’s what he observes me doing. Hey, it’s a process, and every writer I know has one. And most of them require a lot of coffee.
What if this… What if that… If x happens, then y could happen, but z could be an even better choice!
Noodle, noodle, noodle. Pour another cup of coffee, turn to a clean page in the notebook, and stare into space to find that z.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
You get the idea. It can be a lengthy process. Fortunately, it’s a process that works (as long as I don’t run out of coffee!).
