Top Secret Code Name of Current Project: Who Murdered Superman? (It Was Aquaman, Wasn’t It, I FUCKING KNEW IT.)
Current Pitch: Six Wakes meets Justice League Unlimited

Number of Amnesiac POV characters: 5
Number of Important Backstory Events Planned Out: 3
Number of Dead Bodies: 1 . . . so far 

Song From Current Project Playlist: Batman Theme (1966)

Goal Met: Almost

I am not a gardener, not in any definition of the word. If I mean to write something, especially if it’s long, a mystery, or both, I’m gonna need some blueprints to work from. Admittedly, I don’t always follow my own blueprints, but I feel a lot less anxious at the start if I at least have something resembling a plan.

This week has been all about Crafting the Plan, and while I’m not quite done yet, I’m feeling good about the progress I’ve made so far. This particular novel (or possibly novella) idea has been rattling around in my head for literal years, and it feels good to seriously start work on it. In fact, I’ve already identified a problem and since course-corrected: there were just too many characters for the story I wanted to tell. More characters mean more suspects, which obviously I enjoy, but too many suspects usually means a watered down mystery where supposed main players are clearly extraneous and thus easily discarded as possible culprits. Once I considered combining a few of my characters, though, I realized I had a much tighter mystery taking shape.

I also spent some time working out my Timeline of Important Events, not of what takes place during the novel but rather what leads up to it. I’d do this before tackling any mystery, of course, but it seemed especially important with this particular project, considering I start my story with a bunch of characters who don’t know who they are, what’s going on, or why there’s a dead superhero in the room. It seemed important I knew at least marginally more than they did.

Now armed with a bunch of secrets (SO MANY SECRETS) and a handful of origin stories, I feel like I’m in a much better place to actually, you know, begin the novel next week. Please do not expect any such optimism to persist on this blog. That’s simply not how we do things here at My Geek Blasphemy.

Finally, a Random Line From the Notes Without Any Context:

The Dead Guy Principles:
Thou shalt not murder