Although I'm this close to finishing TOPAZ, it feels like I might as well be half a book away. I can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, but, as Frost says, I have miles to go.

I've been working on Chapter 28 for a few days now. It seems to be a pattern for me: the chapter after a section with lots of action is extremely tough to get onto paper (or screen). I've written one version already, but it didn't seem to be tough enough on Faith and Jason. (Yes, I'm a mean author.)

Part of the problem is that I want to go in one direction—and I think Faith is tugging in another. I hate fighting with my characters. It's annoying. I'm not convinced that the direction she wants is the correct one for the story, though. Grr.

Maybe I'll listen to her and write a few pages in that direction and see if it works. It probably will. One thing I've learned is that, as much as I fight with my characters sometimes, they're usually right.

I'm starting to get excited about TOPAZ again. Maybe that's not the right way to phrase it. I mean, I've always found the story exciting and I don't think I've written any boring parts, but there are always some scenes in a book that are more fun to write than others. I'm about to plunge headfirst into some awesome ones.

I recently posted Chapter 20 on the WD forums for some feedback. I'd thought it was a "breather" chapter, but my readers have informed me that, no, it's not. Ha. They don't know what's coming. There's lots of nasty stuff heading Faith's way, and some really good stuff too: for one, her wings will be regenerating. I don't regret writing in their destruction, but her wings really are what makes Faith special, so I'll be happy when they're completely regrown (and so will my readers on the forums, I bet).

At lunch yesterday I wrote out the basic sequence of events from now until the end of the book. I've had the ending planned out for awhile so it's very satisfying to see how it's all going to come together. And to see that the ending I want will still work. Yay!

Here's a snippet from Chapter 21.

I screamed.

Jason burst out of the bathroom, dripping water all over the carpet, his eyes wild. “What is it? Are you—”

I turned to him, tears glistening in my eyes. A tremulous smile danced across my lips. “My wings, Jason. They’re back. They look like crap—” I giggled wetly. “But, oh my God, they’re back!” With the last word, I shot toward him, laughing.

He caught my insignificant weight against his chest, my infectious smile transferring to his face. With a whoop, he spun me around. More laughter burst out of me like an uncaged bird.

His eyes twinkled as he put me back on the ground. “Let’s see.”

“They’re not pretty,” I warned. But I turned so he could have a look.

They weren’t fully formed, not yet. The two appendages on my back were little more than sacs of skin and cartilage, vaguely wing-shaped. The muscles and nerves in the wings hadn’t completed their regeneration, so I couldn’t do more than flutter them against my back. They were small, maybe a third of their former size, reaching to just past my buttocks. The skin of my back itched like crazy. The muscles ached with the strain of being used again after so many days dormant.

I loved every minute of it.

Jason grabbed one of them and extended it to have a look. The pressure of his hand felt like a finger poking at your cheek after the dentist froze your mouth.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, moving the wing around.

“A little sore,” I admitted. My voice sounded chirpy, even to my ears.

Jason chuckled. “I wish I could have Malcolm check you over, make sure everything’s coming in all right.”

“Have faith.” He released my wing and I turned. Pushing up on my tiptoes, I brushed my lips against his. My hands drifted over his bare chest and I realized he was as naked as I. Liquid heat shivered through me.

He arched a brow, then lifted me suddenly. “Thank you. I believe I will.”

I smacked a hand against his pectoral and giggled—a giggle that turned into a shriek as he spun and fell backwards onto the bed, me plastered on top of him.

And then I couldn’t do anything else but feel.

Now that I'm two-thirds of the way through my second novel, I can say with absolute certainty that this is where I start to flounder. I did it with SENTINEL and it's happening again with TOPAZ. Anyone else experience the third-act slump, or am I weird?

I have this mental image in my head of my characters looking at me with puzzled looks on their faces, saying, "By this point, you should know who we are. Why is this so difficult?"

Why indeed?

Maybe it's the pressure to continue pushing my characters along their arcs from who they were to who they will be by the end of the book.

Maybe it's the realization that some of the ideas I had for this part of the book are just plain goofy now that I'm here.

Maybe the need to start tying up loose ends is a tad stifling.

Maybe I just need a break. Grr.

I've set myself a deadline to have the first draft of TOPAZ done by the end of the summer. Originally I wanted to have it revised and out on agent queries by then, but that's not going to happen. With this new timeframe, I'm hoping maybe it'll be out by the end of September. We'll see. If I can get my mind to feel less rust-filled, I think it's doable.

What do you do when you hit a bit of a slump?


TOPAZ status: Chapter 19 is done but I'm not happy with it. Grr.

There is more than one "point of view" and "perspective" an author can choose from when writing a novel. The most common tends to be third-person limited, where the reader knows only what one character is thinking, but is still a step removed by the use of the character's name, pronouns, etc., like: "Bobbi's mouth watered as she thought of the chocolate ice cream in her freezer." At any given time, the reader sees only into one character's head—but over the course of the novel, the POV character might change to provide different perspectives.

Another popular choice is a first-person narrative. This perspective slaps the reader smack-dab into the main character's brain, using "I" and "me", as in: "My mouth watered as I thought of the chocolate ice cream in my freezer." First-person, when done well, can draw the reader into the story and add tension, since the reader doesn't know what any of the other characters are thinking. Yes, I know some writers switch between first-person POVs throughout their novels, but I don't really like that. It seems like cheating, somehow.

Anyway, first-person is the POV I'm writing TOPAZ in, and third-person limited is what SENTINEL is written in. I debated switching TOPAZ to third-person limited because it seems to me in the genre romance category that everyone and their dog is writing in first-person. But in the case of TOPAZ it works—and I'd go so far as to say it's necessary. It keeps the reader in the dark, just like Faith. Using multiple, third-person limited POVs would give away some of the secrets of the other characters before they should be revealed.

But damn...it can be tough to write in.

It's extremely limiting. As the author, you can reveal only what your MC sees, feels, thinks. The other characters' true motives are concealed from the MC, and she can only guess what they're planning or thinking. Unless they're wordy and honest, which, let's be frank, doesn't make for a very good book.

It also puts a lot of pressure on your MC to be likable and engaging, since the reader is going to be in her head for the whole book. And...they're always "on", as in, there isn't a scene in the book without her. That's a lot to live up to.

Okay...now that I've intensified the demands on myself, back to work.


TOPAZ status: Posted the second half of Chapter 15 on the WD Forum last night and received some feedback that Faith's emotional reaction in the scene needs to be stronger. So I'll be addressing that today.

SENTINEL status: Still on the back burner, but I'm continuing to think of changes.

I was working on TOPAZ last night and my fingers surprised me. They typed out a line that made me stop and say, "Huh." It was one of those moments where the creative process was flowing so naturally, it took me in a direction I didn't expect, but one that makes perfect sense. It's definitely not what I'd originally intended for Faith, my MC, but I like it! For those of you following my first draft on the WD forums, I won't spoil it here (you're welcome and/or sorry!).

I believe Cursings and Musings has a post about characters running away with their writers, and it's so true — although in this case it wasn't Faith who ran away from me, just my creative little brain. In the first draft of SENTINEL, though, Callie totally took me off guard by confessing to a murder! I'd intended to have her profess her innocence but she quietly admitted that yes, she'd killed her ex-boyfriend. (As it turns out, she didn't...but it's a moot point, anyway, because that part got edited out. ;) ) It's funny to think about characters as being in control of their stories, but in a lot of ways, they have more control than the writer. Weird, but true.

Oh, and in more writing news, I also wrote Jason and Faith's first love scene last night. Yowza! ;)


TOPAZ status: Working on Chapter 18. Things are flowing again, which is great.

SENTINEL status: Ideas are germinating.

Does anyone dream about their stories? Other than an initial dream that might plant an idea in my head, I don't. Many nights I'll lie in bed, lights off, dozing, and think about my characters and the crazy situations they find themselves in. I'd love to drop into their world for a little bit and find out what they'll do next...but, invariably, I don't. I guess they want to keep their secrets until I'm sitting in front of the computer, ready to write it all down.

I think maybe TOPAZ, my WIP, originated from my dreams of flying (everyone has those, right?). Faith, the MC, has wings, but they're not your typical feathered, pretty-as-a-Christmas-angel wings. They're bat-like, bordering on ugly — which, logically, is what a human would have for wings. A funny thing about my dreams of flying, though, which I realized only recently: in them, I'm never higher than treetop height. Why? Because I'm scared of heights! Luckily Faith doesn't have this handicap, so she's quite content jumping off 50-storey buildings.

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TOPAZ status: Still working on Chapter 14. It just does not want to be written, probably because I haven't found the right Chapter 14 yet. Frustrating.