Hey awesome,

I hope this holiday season has been kind to you! How are you spending this time-is-extra-not-real stretch of days before the end of the year?

I'm wrapping up this first draft of my novel for Baen, so it's edits and re-ordering here. I was going to tell you that this is absolutely the messiest first draft I've ever had…but as I typed it, I realized that's not true. It's the messiest first draft novel, for sure, but more than a few of my short stories have been in this bonkers place.

You've heard the pantser/plotter/plantser self-identification for writers, right? Pantser = write by the seat of your pants and figure it out as you go (wheee!), plotter = take time to outline the plot before diving in (details + methods vary), and plantsers are somewhere in the spectrum between the two.

I am, by nature, a pantser. Wing it and let the characters figure it out. However, I have learned over the past few years that I am much more successful when I have a plan. See, you might think here 'cool, so she's a plantser' and…sure. But my attempts to manage my own chaos go something like this:

Step 1: make an outline for the story

Step 2: begin writing aligned to outline - all is well

Step 3: get a little stuck, jump to a different part and write some more - thanks to having a plan, that's not so bad

Step 4ish: write the ending, because it's right there!

Step 5: realize parts of the middle no longer work right - all is not well

Step 6: reorder, rewrite. Repeat as needed

Step 7: edit edit edit

Not included here are the 'oh this story is going to be amaaaaazing' and 'this is the worst series of words I've ever strung together in one place hoowwww can I make this work?' moments that are (sometimes generously) interspersed throughout those steps. Basically, even with my planning, the middles get real messy, and I'm not sure how to fix them until I have the end set.

The only way out is through.

I'm sure that means I need to plot better, but also this just might be my process. My sometimes frustrating, always messy, entirely me process.

So that's how I'm closing out 2022 – making this middle hang together so it's a whole story. Then I'll send it to some amazing volunteer alpha readers so they can let me know what's working and what's still a mess. Super bright side, that will give me some distance so I can get back to it with fresh eyes in January.

What plans do you have for the new year? I'm kicking mine off with some awesome family visiting us, then running off to Mars Con to see some of my nerd family, so cheers to starting the year in the manner I'd like it to continue – spending time with so many of my favorite people. I also have two – soon to be three – novels by some incredible authors to dig into before they can come your way… I'm definitely loading up on things to look forward to in the new year.

As for the right now looking forward to, how about a new book? Casey Moores has a new Fallen World book, The Guilted Cage, and it's freaking awesome:

From the cover copy:

On the day the world ended, Tyrone followed Teledyne’s orders and led a fleet of bombers over Colorado Springs, where he dropped enough thermobaric bombs to erase all life in the city. But at the end of that day, he found himself the leader of a community of survivors on the grounds of what had once been the United States Air Force Academy, the school from which he’d graduated. Decades later, Tyrone has maintained the secret of what he did from the community he protects, but when Tyrone’s adopted son Kid makes a discovery in a nearby lake, it could ruin everything.

To the southwest, a group known as the Riders, whose mounts are giant wolves, win a great victory and seek to re-open communications with nearby communities. But when they find a city that’s been razed by a well-equipped, well-organized military force from New Mexico, they vow to find the perpetrators and to make them pay.

The trail takes them to the foot of Cheyenne Mountain, where they find the evil force working to unlock deadly secrets that have lain dormant since the day Tyrone bombed the city.

It's somehow even better than it sounds!! Not a bad way to end the year. And if you could also use some free books for this weird in-between-years time, I got you:

https://books.bookfunnel.com/lostinfantasy/1750930153

https://books.bookfunnel.com/jansff001a/b9f62r4b6b

Happy end of 2022!

Til next year,

Marisa