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

Character Stepping On A Dead Body: Check
Character Waking Up Slightly Impaled: Check
Character Bursting Into Hysterical Laughter: Obviously.

Song From Current Project Playlist: In A House (In A Heartbeat) – John Murphy

Goal Met: Not yet

In a late Season 3 episode of The Flash, Leonard Snart, master thief, explains The Four Rules of a Successful Heist:

1. Make the plan
2. Execute the plan
3. Expect the plan to go off the rails . . .
4. . . . throw away the plan.

This is, honestly, a more-than-fair assessment of just how my writing process works.

I finished a draft of Chapter 1 last week, and I felt good about it–sure, the draft wasn’t great and I finished it just under the wire, but hey, win by an inch or a mile, right, and besides, first drafts aren’t actually about being sellable. They’re about discovery, about reaching The End, about giving your story somewhere bigger and better to live than just the solitary space inside your head. I often rewrite as I work, but considering my weekly Write-a-Thon deadlines, I decided to avoid that as much as possible here. The plan was to push through until the six weeks were over; then I could go back and fix all the frustrating inconsistencies.

Obviously, Week 3 was all about Step 4.

The problem was this: after finishing the chapter, I realized there was just too damn much I wanted to change. And that’s the thing about mysteries, you know. The setup is kind of important. The biggest change I needed to make was to one of my POV characters. Let’s call her BC. Originally, I introduced BC in Chapter 1, which seemed fine. By the time I got to the end of Chapter 1, though, I realized I wanted to end it on this mini-cliffhanger. And with that cliffhanger in mind, I realized BC’s introduction could be so much more dynamic (and creepier) if I waited until Chapter 2. Which then meant I had to rewrite half the goddamn first chapter. Naturally, it took most of the week to do so, because life gets busy sometimes, and because it was absolutely vital I helped my friends kick ass on Trivia Tuesday. (I’m more valuable in some categories than others. In Science Fiction, for instance, I proved useful. When Spirits & Liquor came up, I was basically just there to look pretty.)

So, yes, I’m behind. Again. But I made some solid progress last night, and I expect I’ll manage to finish up by the end of Saturday. More importantly, halfway through the Write-a-Thon, people! With any luck, I’ll successfully complete this and get back to posting about TOS episodes and terrible movies soon!

Random Line From Chapter Two:

Flesh has a very distinctive bounce.