Hey there and Happy Father’s Day to all of you fathers out there…

Many times, when I’m writing a story I try to map out how I want each scene to appear in the story by creating an outline. It helps to keep the flow going and allows me to see the entire story play out in my head before I do the actual writing which I think is necessary when you are beginning a new novel. And when you do it this way you wind up allowing the story to write itself. I love those moments because you lose yourself and suddenly you are not writing the story anymore. Something else takes over and you become the reader as well as the writer.

What I’ve never talked about before was bumps in the story that tend to come up. This happens to me all the time and it can throw me off track. I will have the entire book mapped out and proceed accordingly and then suddenly bam! A new idea comes along and presents itself like a bride on a wedding cake. Then I must stop what I’m doing and rearrange the scenes that I’ve already written and add the new ideas. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It can cause you to write an even better story or it can cause you to write a bunch of crap. I hate it when new ideas come into my head after I’ve already written the outline because then comes the thing I hate most…rewriting. If you have already set a time limit for when you want to finish your book you must change it because it will now take longer before the book is finished.

But I digress, this is what I mean by a bump in the story and I absolutely love it and hate it all at the same time. It’s a love hate relationship and it can affect the entire novel and then after a few long months you begin to say…” Damn am I ever going to finish this?” Sometimes I will and sometimes I won’t. These are some of the issues I must go through to get my book written. Just thought I’d share that with you in case you ever wondered how I write and what kinds of issues I face while trying to complete a novel. Hopefully, there are no bumps in the story that I am currently writing. If so, I will jump off that bridge when I come to it. Until next time…