About the time The Tethered World came out, I finished my second book, The Flaming Sword. While everyone asked me how it felt to release my ‘baby’ to the world (and rightly so!) I was scrambling to get book two finished and to my editor. December, January, and February were intense, between book launching and writing like a maniac, I slept and socialized very little. When I finally finished the second installment, I had euphoric feelings of accomplishment. This meant my first book wasn’t just a fluke! I actually wrote two full length novels!
One reason things were nuts–well, two actually–was that I added a secondary point of view to The Flaming Sword at the last minute. Crazy, right? And that reason leads to the second stressor…rather than outline and plan, like some organized writers I know, I write by the seat of my pants. Perhaps it’s the curse of the severely right-brained, but I just canNOT lay down an outline for a full length novel. 
If you do work from an outline, I would love to know your secret. Is there a special formula for coffee or an herbal tincture that could help with this idiosyncrasy of mine?
My style is more leap-frog than anything else. I know the jumping points before I start…I know my character(s) needs to get from point A to B to C, etc. But those are broad and encompass the main events of the book. Part of the fun of writing, to me, is that the characters take over and do things that surprise me…even though I invented them and stuck them in their particular situation in the first place.
But let me tell you, adding this secondary point of view to the story in the final months of writing became an exercise of walking on water, so to speak, every day. It was both terrifying and exciting. I prayed my way through each chapter, a little nervous about how I was going to pull it off (don’t tell my publisher! *wink, wink*).
By the time everything came together and I made it to “The end”, I was emotionally spent. And…I begrudgingly admitted that book three needed a leeettle bit more structure inside my brain before I set my fingers to the keyboard.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no intention (or ability) to lay out a point-by-point outline. But I do have sheets of paper, scribbled and scratched and circled with a loose narrative.
This is progress, people!
After hyperventilating my way through book two, I’ve decided having more structure will be a welcome change. Writing COMPLETELY by the seat of my pants sometimes felt like a giant wedgy!
What is YOUR writing style? Can you relate to such a free-spirited approach or do you have a more methodical way to get from “Once upon a time” to “The end”? I’d love to hear how you do your thang 😉