Designing America Is Done! Kinda… Sorta… Okay, Not Really.

I finished Designing America yesterday afternoon!

Admittedly, that makes it sound like a much bigger accomplishment than it actually is, so let me restate. I finished the first draft of Designing America. And I’m about 40,000 words short on my word count.

I was planning on writing a decent bit more before the “the end” part, but it just didn’t turn out that way. “The end” happened without asking for permission.

My stories are rude like that.

The thing is, normally they’re also a heck of a lot wordier. So I’m not quite sure what happened this time around.

One logical possibility is that I was focusing too much on the historical detail and not enough on the actual story. Because, guess what? I was.

I knew it all along, and I knew I’d have to fix it. There are so many important characters I introduced and then didn’t engage or utilize nearly well enough, all because I was so determined to get as many facts down as possible. At the expense of everything other than the plot.

The other reason why I might not have written as much as expected for this first draft is that – SPOILER ALERT! – the love interest isn’t even there most of the time. He’s in the very beginning and the very end. That’s it.

Without any swoons and sighs and such, it does make for a quicker read (and write).

Yet, regardless, I can’t be all that upset about the additional work I’m going to have to do for the second draft now that the first draft ended so soon. Not when it ended on such a perfect note!

I’m normally horrible about last lines. Like absolutely horrible. I hate them. They always sound so contrived to me. Might as well write “and they lived happily ever after,” as that’s as good as it’s going to get.

This one though? It’s beautiful! It’s perfect! It doesn’t require me to tear my hair out in anguish!

Which is a major relief. So I’m not going to look this mixed-gift horse in the mouth.

Designing America Draft 2? Here I come…

And yes, I promise the final copy will read like a story and not a history text book.

Same Story Line, Different Main Character – Totally Fascinating!

In last Wednesday’s blog, I admitted – WARNING: SPOILER ALERT – that I meant to kill Kayla at the end of “The Politician’s Pawn.”

That didn’t happen though. And since I didn’t figure that wasn’t going to happen until the last two chapters, I was left with three possible options:

1.       End the story on an inconclusive note

2.       Write a really, really long book in order to resolve everything

3.       Start figuring out a sequel

As usual with my stories, I didn’t get any say in the matter. My muse took over and chose (i.e., demanded, mandated, put a gun to my head and said, “Do this or else”) that a sequel it would be. Moreover, it was going to be a sequel from blue-eyed, conflicted-bad-boy Evan’s perspective.

I genuinely don’t remember ever consciously making that decision. It just happened. One chapter, I was writing from a familiar female point of view; the next, I was doing my best to think like a guy.

A guy who used to be in the military. And turned to crime. And then grew a conscience again.

Now, I’ve never been a guy, or in the military, or turned to crime. Though I have shed and regrown a conscience a time or two. So I figured this was going to be three-quarters of a major challenge.

Except that it wasn’t. My gun-toting muse (I really should name her if I keep bringing her up. How about Katrina?) was about as benevolent a story-line kidnapper as possible.

The first thing she did was prompt me to start out “Moves and Countermoves” – WARNING: SPOILER ALERT – back in Kayla’s living room after Evans has handed a manila folder full of evidence over. So it rehashes a dozen or two lines of dialogue from the very end of Dirty Politics 1. Only it’s Evans’ eyes we see it all through, and his thoughts we get to listen in on.

Here’s the first thing I discovered writing that same scene from a new perspective: Male and military-trained or not, he’s not nearly as impassive as Kayla thinks he is. And he definitely wasn’t the night before, when – WARNING: SPOILER ALERT – he saved her from becoming another sad, D.C. crime statistic.

Fictional though both Kayla and Evans are, it provided me a rather fascinating example of a real-life truth… that we never really know where another person is coming from. They might be acting badly. They might even be acting in a downright evil manner, in which case they have no excuse.

But they might just have a reason nonetheless. And sometimes that reason is pretty darn heavy.

Just ask Evans. Which you can do as of June 24, when I publish “Moves and Countermoves.”

If This Character Had Listened to Its Author, It Would Be Dead

Major spoiler alert here.

If you’re planning on reading “The Politician’s Pawn,” then go away. Unless, of course, you’re the kind of person who can’t stand edge-of-your-seat possibilities and always skip to the end of your novels to make sure everything ends happily ever after. In that case, keep reading.

Everyone else, you’ve been warned. Here’s the major spoiler…

Main character Kayla was supposed to die at the end of the book. That’s how I intended it to be right from the beginning. I didn’t know how I was going to kill her, but it was going to happen. Why? Because I was sick of politics and politicians, and she and my readers were going to suffer for it.

So there!

I’d like to say that I matured or grew a conscience, or something noble like that. Except that’d be a big fat lie. I had no such change of heart.

Kayla just wouldn’t die.

It wasn’t until the second to last chapter that I realized the stubborn little thing was dead-set on surviving the worst D.C. – and I – had to throw at her. Like a swung election, I had no say in the matter, author or not.

Moreover, I had no say about writing a sequel. As I finished those last twenty or so pages, it dawned on me that the way “The Politician’s Pawn” was going to inevitably end wasn’t going to resolve much of anything. And if there’s anything I can’t stand in the world of writing, it’s a lack of resolution.

So “Moves and Countermoves” was officially begun.

The funny thing is that there’s so much about “The Politician’s Pawn” that was begging for a sequel. I don’t know how I could have been dense enough not to see it until the second to last chapter.

I suppose I was too busy running the show to see where the show was running.

I’m sure my creative muse got a good kick out of that. I can just see her lounging on my shoulder, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

“Silly author,” she might have said. “Who said you were in charge?”