A number of years ago, I noticed that many of the “people who bought this also bought” books on the listings for my Enchanted, Inc. books were cozy paranormal mysteries. That made me curious, so since I love mysteries, I tried reading a bunch of these.

I could definitely see the comparison. Like my books, these had a sassy first-person narrator who had to deal with some kind of crisis, and there was a slow-burn romantic relationship over the course of the series. The only real difference was that in my books the crisis involved magical mayhem while in the mysteries it was usually a dead body, and in the mysteries it seemed that the romance was usually with some law enforcement officer.

This made me think that I should look into writing this sort of thing. It really seems to be right up my alley, a mix of fantasy, mystery, and romance. I even came up with a setting/scenario for who my sleuth would be and why she was there. Oddly enough, the hard part was coming up with the paranormal element. The main difference between the paranormal mysteries and urban fantasy seems to be in the world. In the mysteries, the world is more “normal” and the sleuth is the paranormal part, so there’s some conflict between her and the world. She has some kind of ability that’s what gets her involved in the mystery — she can talk to ghosts who complain to her about their murder, she can touch an object and learn something about its owner, she can enter a space and tell what happened there — but because it’s paranormal and she’s in a world where that’s not commonly accepted, she can’t exactly tell the cops how she knows who was murdered and how, and her evidence isn’t the sort of thing they can use to get an arrest warrant or even a search warrant. Sometimes, knowing what she does can even make her a suspect. In fantasy, on the other hand, usually more of the world is magical. There’s some kind of magical subculture, so if the heroine has powers, she’s not the only one. She still might clash with the normal cops, but there’s a network of magical beings around her.

I’m more used to doing the fantasy kind of thing, so my first stab involved inverting the usual setup and having my heroine be the normal one who’s trying to use evidence while the rest of the town is all going, “Yep, a wizard did it,” but then I realized that would be difficult to sustain for long. It was hard coming up with some sort of ability that only the heroine might have and that would be considered odd in the world and that hasn’t been done to death. I also love the “strange little town” story, so I wanted the heroine to be a semi-normal outsider trying to fit into the strange little town, but then how is she going to solve mysteries?

I think I may finally have an idea that could work, so I guess I’ll be adding that to my list of things to try to write. It just shows you how long it can take to go from “I should write this” to having something even remotely viable. It was 2012 when I did all that mystery reading and first started thinking of this. It hasn’t usually been front-burner, but still, that’s a long time to gestate an idea before even getting to the point of developing it.

I’m considering last week a kind of trial run at the new year. I tried to treat the week after New Year’s Day like regular working days, but the epic ordeal of waiting for a plumber for days on end disrupted my schedule. But now the last holiday party is over, all the Christmas stuff is down and out of the way, and I’m back to what passes for “normal” around here, so the new year is beginning in earnest, for real this time. It’s time to get out of holiday mode and back onto my usual schedule (well, until the next plumbing appointment for the serious work required to do the repairs the plumber assessed when he finally came).

That means I really have to get to work on this book that’s due in a couple of weeks. I’m in the phase of revision in which fixing one thing means going back and tinkering with something else. I’m also having the “hey, wait a second” moments in which I question things I’ve written. For instance, I’ll know why my viewpoint character is in a scene, but then I stop to wonder why the other characters are there and realize either they shouldn’t be there or I need to come up with a reason for them to be there. But then when I come up with a reason for them to be there, that changes something else.

I seem to be working both forward and backward. As I move forward fixing things, it brings up fixes I have to do in the past, which bring up other fixes I need to track back and do.

But I can feel the book getting better, and that’s a good feeling.

I started writing a new book yesterday afternoon. I don’t know where it will go, but more and more of it kept coming to life in my head until I had to get it out, and I got close to 2,000 words written. So I guess I’m doing National Novel Writing Month with a bit of a late start. We’ll see what happens with it, but I did the usual “shiny new idea” thing by writing down what I knew about it, and it kept building and developing instead of fizzling out. Now I have fleshed-out characters and a world with history.

So, I guess I have a new story in the works. We’ll see where it goes from here, but so far, writing has been fun and I’ve looked forward to working on it. I got up this morning and wrote more than a thousand words. When work feels like play, it’s a good sign.

Now, about 25,000 words from now I’ll be struggling and another new idea will hit and it won’t be as much fun, but I’ll enjoy this while it lasts. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s good to be reminded that I started doing this for fun and only later made any money at it. This is reminding me of when I used to scribble in spiral notebooks in my bedroom when I was a teenager, making up stories. I just hope I finish this, unlike those things I wrote as a kid. I was really bad about getting an idea, starting to write it, then getting another idea that was even better, and starting to write it, and so forth.

Now I really want to get back to the story because something good is about to happen and I can’t wait to see it.

I’m on the verge of starting to write something new. The opening scene has been playing out in my head in different variations, and the one that hit me last night as I was falling asleep feels like it’s the right one. That led to seeing the second scene, and that means that the characters are pretty solid in my head and I’m seeing the movie of this book in my mind. That’s when it gets exciting and fun.

It’s a cold day and I still have a bit of a cold, so spending a day playing in an imaginary land sounds like the way to go. I’ve got my adjustable bed in what I call “recliner mode” so that it works like a chair, I’ve got the electric blanket, and I’ve got a pot of hot tea in the thermos. I’m all set.

Now watch me sputter out after an hour of writing, and I’ll know that there’s more work to do or maybe the idea isn’t viable. That’s why this is a fun/scary/exciting phase of writing, when that perfect, wonderful story in my head crashes into reality and I see what it really looks like.

Fortunately, the cold weather isn’t supposed to stick around long, but it’s been below freezing enough to kill off the mosquitoes, so I’ll be able to enjoy the outdoors even more. Now let’s just hope my cold goes away that quickly.

I’ve had a busy day so far. I’ve written a thousand words, I’ve taken a walk, I’ve gone to the library, and I’ve voted. Normally, I vote on election day since my precinct is usually pretty quiet during the day, but the early voting place is at the library, and I needed books anyway, so I figured I’d get it taken care of now in case election day is rainy or I get sick. Now I don’t have to worry about it.

I tried writing before getting online this morning, and that worked pretty well. I’m not normally a morning writer, but I thought I’d give it a try. I could probably have gone on, but I needed to look up info for some of the down-ballot candidates, and I wanted to get to the polling place before people started taking lunch breaks to go vote. Next week I’ll really see how far I can get before I check in online.

I’ve discovered the feature in Scrivener that takes your due date and your word count and calculates the number of words you need to write each day, then recalculates after each day’s writing session. I’m using an arbitrary date for this draft to make sure I have enough time to tinker with it before I need to turn it in, and although the daily total I need to make that deadline is a bit higher than I usually write, it’s not higher by much, and going over my needed count for the day will drop the daily goal on subsequent days. It’s amazing how motivational that is.

Because of my early start, just hitting the usual number of words I do in an afternoon will let me go above the current target. I’m more than halfway through with this draft, and I think I have a good idea of what will happen in the rest of the story, though a new idea that will alter things somewhat struck me on my walk this morning, so I need to play with that.

I’ve got a library book festival this weekend, and in addition to being on a panel, I’m doing a workshop on story structure. I spent much of yesterday working on my workshop, and doing that made me realize where I’m going wrong in the book I’m working on. It’s not a massive course correction, just some subtle things, but I’m glad I caught it now rather than after a draft when those little things had become major.

Some people seem to think of structure as a restriction or a constraint. I find it a useful tool. In a novel, you don’t really have to force it into a particular structure. I find that looking for the various stages is a good way to find the story and to stay on track instead of wandering all over the place. Just filling in the very basic elements of structure is a good way to test an idea. I think, to some extent, the difference between an idea and a story is putting some kind of structure to it — what does the hero want, what’s stopping him from getting it, what will he have to do to get it, what big decisions will he have to make along the way?

This is why I like doing workshops, even when I’m busy. I learn as much from preparing as any of the attendees do. It forces me to take a step back and evaluate what I’m doing instead of falling into bad habits or going on autopilot.

If you’re in the North Texas area and want to know more, I’ll be doing this workshop at the Mid-Cities Teen Book Festival on Oct. 20. Come see how story structure can work for you.

After some regrouping in previous days to fix some elements of the book before I moved forward, I made good progress yesterday.

Some of it may have been thanks to one of the sessions I went to at the event this weekend. It was about creativity and got into discussion of the “flow state.” I’d read the book on the subject when it first came out. Well, started to read. Then I had to return it to the library because it was due and there was a waiting list so I couldn’t renew it. I may have to pick it up again and make another stab at it.

Anyway, a flow state is when you just start doing something almost automatically. The critical part of your brain gets turned off and you lose track of time. It’s like you blink and an hour has gone by and you’ve written a couple of thousand words. I’ve experienced this, and it’s wonderful. I haven’t been doing a lot of it lately because I’ve been so busy analyzing what I’m writing.

One of the ways to help get into a flow state is to listen to classical or jazz music. Apparently, there’s something about that kind of music that distracts the part of the brain that normally trips you up, and it frees you to just create. Normally, I write in total silence, but I thought I’d give it a shot. I did get a fair amount done when I put on a Chopin CD, but I found that I focused a bit too much on the music because the music was so familiar to me. Next, I opened my Amazon Prime Music app and played my new choir director’s album. When she’s not directing our choir, she’s a concert pianist and has a lovely album of reinterpretations of classical Russian pieces for piano and cello. The new arrangements mean the pieces aren’t so familiar that they’re distracting. That worked well enough that I was startled when the album ended. Then I found a playlist of classical music for focus, and that also worked, except when a familiar piece popped up and I had to see what it was (in one case, it was a track from a CD I have).

So, it seems that playing unfamiliar classical music is the trick. I have written to movie soundtracks in the past, and that can work. Then the music becomes so familiar I can tune it out. It doesn’t work for John Williams because I just want to listen. One of the best CDs for tuning out the world and writing for me is the fifth Harry Potter soundtrack (Order of the Phoenix). But it just doesn’t work for me for this book. It’s the wrong mood/tone.

Now we’ll see if it works again today or if it’s just a fluke.

I’m in the early phase of a book, when I’m still kind of finding my way, figuring out the specifics behind a vague sentence in the proposal. I felt like I ran into a brick wall yesterday, where I wasn’t at all sure what should come next. When I immediately became quite distracted, I figured I knew what was up: my brain was trying to solve the problem and was getting me out of the way.

I woke up this morning with a partial solution. We had a good cold snap, so it was my first night of the season to get to sleep under the real comforter (instead of the knitted lace blanket or the light down throw) and wake up feeling warm and snuggly while it was cool outside, so I let myself lie in bed to enjoy it. That was when I found myself rewinding in the book and finding the spots I needed to tweak to set up what happened next. I’m still not exactly sure what happens next, but that may come to me once I go back and fix things. The things I need to fix are worldbuilding issues and how they intersect with the characters and story, so once I get my world clear, I think everything else will come together better.

So, all that lazing about this morning was really work time. Considering that I actually had narrative in my head that I now just need to transcribe, I don’t think that’s even a stretch or a rationalization.

And that’s why this job is awesome. I can get some really productive stuff done while snuggled under the comforter. Next, I’m going to take a cup of tea onto the patio to write out my revised outline and make sure it still makes sense now that I’m fully conscious.

I got a rough outline of scenes done yesterday, as well as developed the major characters. That means it’s time to start writing. I just have to do one bit of research and work out a timeline, and then I’ll be ready to start. This shouldn’t feel so much like the dive off a cliff that starting a new book usually feels like, since I’ve already written about a thousand words, but there’s still a moment that feels kind of like vertigo.

Meanwhile, I got my kitchen cleaned yesterday. I’d already organized the cabinets, and now the counters are pristine. I still want to do a little work on one of the pantry shelves and I need to mop the floor, but it’s progress. Cleaning is a better way to take breaks between writing sessions than social media. It’s movement that counts as exercise and that feels different from sitting, and it has visible results that are very satisfying.

We’re getting into the time of year when I really want to bake, but I’m strangely not all that keen on eating at the moment. I haven’t had much appetite since I got that cold a couple of weeks ago. I’ve even got desserts that are ready to go, but since I haven’t been hungry, I haven’t bothered. I’m stockpiling recipes for when I have a baking urge and am hungry. I’m trying to focus on nutritious food when I do eat, and I’ve been trying new recipes from a cookbook on the Mediterranean diet (recommended by my doctor), so I guess that takes care of my cooking urge. This weekend, I made a vegetable lasagna, which used a couple of kinds of squash, red bell pepper, goat cheese, and olives with marinara sauce and whole wheat lasagna noodles. It was … interesting. Not bad, but given the effort involved and the quantity produced (I have enough in the freezer to provide all the veggie lasagna I could ever want for months), I don’t think it will make it into regular rotation. We’re supposed to get a cold front this weekend, so I think I’m finally going to get to make a stew with my Instant Pot.

And that’s enough rambling for the day. Time to dive off that cliff and get to work!

Yesterday was all about getting back into the mindset to start work on this new book. The last time I opened those files was in February, so I had to dig up all my notes and remember what I’d decided about the characters and story. Then I realized that I hadn’t done much development for the characters who weren’t in the opening scene that was part of the proposal. I had a vague mental image of a character we’re about to meet in the next scene, and I knew the role he played in the story, but I didn’t have a good sense of his personality. I also realized I didn’t even know what the main character looks like. She’s the narrator, so I was seeing the world through her eyes and never actually saw her.

So I spent most of yesterday on character development. Today I’m going to be working on a more detailed outline, figuring out what scenes there need to be and a bit of what happens in each. I have a couple more characters I need to develop in more depth, but that may wait until they come up in the book.

Some of this feels like it could be procrastination, but I think the writing will go more smoothly and there will be less rewriting if I have more of it figured out ahead of time, if I make a lot of the tough story decisions up front. I reserve the right to change my mind if something better comes up, but it does help to have a plan up front.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to move more throughout the day, so every hour I’m taking a short (using a timer to keep it short) break to do housework. I got my kitchen mostly cleaned yesterday in five-minute increments. I have to admit that it was nice to come into the kitchen this morning to make breakfast and see all those clean, clear surfaces. Last week, I reorganized one of my cabinets, getting rid of a lot of extraneous food storage containers and clearing space to put a lot of other things away or make things that were at the back of the pantry more reachable. I seem to be becoming a neat freak as I get older. We’ll see how much organization and cleaning I can do in five-minute sessions throughout the day.