I have to admit it: I’m one of those writers who doesn’t really do much of anything until I absolutely fall in love with an idea—anything from a character to a scene to a setting. My ideas come from dreams, friends, books, movies, TV, etc. But until an idea really grabs me, I can’t sustain my interest enough to spend three or four months on drafting.
But man, when that idea strikes, it’s hard to make myself do the normal day-to-day, keeping-the-house-clean, being-a-mom stuff. All I want to do is write, and yet no matter how fast I write (my record is 5000 words in a day), it’s not fast enough. The rest of the book stretches out in front of me, scenes and lines and snippets that threaten to slip away before I can get there. So I race on.
An idea struck three weeks ago. So far, I’ve gotten down almost 23,000 words. (Woot! Check out my progress bar in the sidebar.) I’m excited to be drafting again (first time since April), and if I finish the draft by October 21, I’ll have drafted three books in a year. That’s pretty cool.
It’s interesting how different each book is, you know? Not just plot-wise or character-wise (although these three books have the same hero/heroine), but process-wise.
This time around, I’ve accepted that what I like to get in there are people, action, dialogue and plot twists. Cool. On my last MS, I tried to get everything in there on the first draft—sensory details, settings, character descriptions, etc. etc. This time, I’m embracing my favorite parts—I mean, I’ll put in the other stuff as needed, but if a scene is all dialogue/action, and it takes place in a vacuum, I’m not going to cry about it in this draft.
For me, that’s stuff I can add later, in each layer of editing. In fact, I’m taking this week off drafting to go back to the first MS I wrote during this year to add in more of those descriptions and sensory information, since the second half of the book is rather bereft of those (silly me, thinking all the character and setting descriptions were established in the first half, and we wouldn’t need anymore after that!).
How about you? What inspires you? Do you try to get everything in one draft—and if not, what do you leave out to add in later?
This week is probably going to be a bit of a catch-all week as I try to get things done between editing bouts and housecleaning—and, of course, working on the PDF from our website series. But next week, we’ll start another new and awesome series. I think 
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Photo credits: matches—Kicki; inspire—Mark Brannan
First, I should quickly define deep point of view. (I go into this in much greater depth in my book, 
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But maybe you think there’s no absolute reality, and that the only way to get close to knowing reality is to juxtapose the accounts of several people, a collage-like effect that is very similar to multiple POV. Now we single-POV types, we don’t know if there’s an absolute reality, and in fact, we don’t much care. We’re mostly concerned with the inner reality of characters, what they think and notice and value. 
Private-eye novels, on the other hand, are indeed about the character of the detective (and the detective’s voice), so that snarky first-person narration allows that. The genres evolved a preferred POV approach because that approach usually (never say always 
That’s a tough one—truly, a real conundrum. I have this problem all the time with characters who either a.) would never, ever sit around describing their everyday world or b.) think and speak in slang or obscure terms that not every reader is going to understand, but everyone else in the scene would.
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I’d also like a little more insight into exactly what she’s feeling there. She goes from a sad smile and tears in her eyes to door slamming, punching and growling. In these paragraphs, we see a good view of her penitence and regret, but the rest of the emotional progression could be a little clearer, since we’re in her head with her. (It’s kinda crowded, I know, but it’s where lots of readers like to be.)
I’m divided on this issue in my WIP, so I’d like to hear your opinions. When reading something in fairly deep POV, is it more natural to refer to the POV character’s family members as “his dad” or just “Dad”? Both have their advantages and disadvantages in my opinion, and I’ve seen both in first-person as well. I’m still pretty torn, so I’m turning it over to you. (Update: I’ve found my 
It started off promising. The beginning showed the Jackson 5 practicing their music and dancing, and the rigors of their lives. It showed the psychological relationships of the characters. But instead of delving deeper and deeper into Michael’s psyche over time, the movie seemed to pull back. As Michael seems to push his family away to pursue a solo career, we see less and less of him—and it feels like we’re being pushed away, too. We go from seeing his insecurities and fears to looking in at Neverland from the outside, just like we always have.
While this is a powerful technique, point of view has always been a limitation of film. There has never been and may never be a satisfactory adaptation of 
