Writing by the seat of your pants

There are generally two styles of writing. One is by plotting (outline, complete plot decided ahead of time) and the other is calling pantsing. Just sit down and write and hope it comes to you as you're going along. In general, I'm a pantster. Oh, I may have a general idea of where the story might end up, but mostly, I don't have a clue.



There are big advantages to both methods. I suspect that the best is a combination of the two but I haven't figured out how to do that. So I say a prayer and hope for the best.



I'm near the end of my current work in progress and have some burning questions to deal with. The bad guys (BG) have a huge military base. The good guys (GG) need to destroy the base. The GG are currently hanging out in an underwater habitat (UH). Haven't figured out how to get them from the UH to the big base. That's one problem.



Problem number two. How are they going to destroy the base?



Problem number three. Should they destroy the base? Or should they take control of the base?



Problem number four. What should I do with the aliens captured by the BG and held prisoner at the base?



Problem number five. What the heck does the BG military base have to do with my GG anyway?



For a book that started out as a sexy book about a trio, somewhere along the way, it blew a tire and ran off the road--as usual--and now I'm wandering around in the rain forest or under water or in the underground tunnels, fighting off giant carnivorous spiders called shadowdancers and undersea creepie crawlies that are a combination of shark and crab--sharcrabs.



Hmmm. See that's the problem with writing by the seat of your pants. Sometimes your rear end gets scorched. I think a need a new pair of pants. My simple story has taken on a life of it's own and turned into one of those never ending choose your adventure computer games.



Note to Editor: So far I only have four "made up" words and a small cast of characters instead of my usual cast of thousands. I need a pat on the back for that accomplishment.



On the other hand, I never ever in my life was able to write from an outline. It usually survived oh... about three paragraphs before it went the way of the dinosaurs and I was diving down dark alleys after characters that were no where in the original plan.



Well, I have to wind this up and get back to the BG at the base. And the GG. And the allies of the GG. Or we could go with that old soap opera standby--it was all a bad dream. Now that has possibilities. Perhaps the Girl in my GG is on some freaky hormone that gives her nightmares.



That's it. It was a baaaaaad dream.



Tune in tomorrow for As the Planet does a Somersault.



Anny



Do you want to win some fantastic holiday reading? If so come celebrate the Twelve days of Romance with 12 authors from Ellora's Cave, Total-E-Bound and Cerridwen Press. Each day beginning December 8th and running through December 19th each one of the twelve authors will leave a clue as to what their "True love gave to them" on either their blog or website.



Participating authors are: Kelly Kirch, Sandra Cox, KZ Snow, Barbara Huffert, Anny Cook, Heather Hiestand, Jacquéline Roth, Cindy Spencer Pape, Bronwyn Green, Brynn Paulin, Lacey Thorn and the Jones girl - Amarinda.



Collect all twelve answers and go into the drawer to win some great books.There will be three lucky winners.



The prizes –1st prize--6 books

2nd prize--4 books

3rd prize--2 books



All books and prize winners will be drawn randomly. For more details visit http://www.kkirch.blogspot.com/ or http://www.amarindajones.blogspot.com/ or http://www.annycook.blogspot.com/ on December 6th.

For more fun drop by Amarinda's place to see what she's done to the Saga at http://www.amarindajones.blogspot.com/ and then roll on over to Kelly's Place to see what she had for us today at http://www.kkirch.blogspot.com/ Blessings on your day!