It's Dark and I Don't Know Where I'm Going

The title of this post pretty much sums up how I feel most of the time when I'm writing. You see, I'm a pantser through and through.

For those of you who don't know, a pantser is someone who 'flies by the seat of their pants' when it comes to writing. As in, I just sit down and I write. I don't plan anything out. I don't have characters profiles, story arcs, future scenes or dialogue. It's all blank.

What starts me off is usually the ghost of an idea. For example, in my recently released book, Sanctuary, you get to meet the demon, Alastor. He makes a deal with Nakita, who is the best friend of Sanctuary's heroine, Tori. The deal is basic; Nakita won't by hurt by either him or anyone else - demon, angel or human - as long as she goes with him to use as leverage to get Tori.

I'm tree-quarters of the way through writing the second book to Sanctuary, titled (for the time being) Severance. When I sat down to write the book, all I knew was that for some reason, the deal between Alastor and Nakita still existed, even though the agreement had come to an end. So, against his will and possibly better judgement, Alastor is forced by the bounds of the contract to protect Nakita. I could foresee some of the complications this might bring for them both, how they might be brought back together and work out the deal was still in effect, but nothing beyond that.

So I start writing. The only way I can compare this type of writing is to say its like reading a book. You sit down, open it up and start discovering the story. You have no idea what's going to happen. Though you might have some ideas, you can only go along for the ride, finding out little bits at a time as you read page after page.
Believe it or not, this is what the writing process is like for me. A lot of the time I don't know whats going to happen until I'm writing it, the story being revealed to me like a movie in my head and I have to interpret what I'm seeing into words. Imagine watching a movie, having to take notes and then find a way of describing a certain expression from a character, or an action sequence, or a fight, or a kissing scene. It wouldn't be easy! And therein always lay the challenge for me; changing what I see playing out in my head into words on a page that will have an impact on the reader.

Often at the start of a scene or chapter I know what the characters are and what they're doing, but I can't stress how much I don't know whats going to happen until the scene is playing out, until the characters are doing their thing and driving the story forward. And you know what? Even I get surprised by things that happen sometimes and have a moment of "wow! I didn't see that coming!"

It seems totally nuts, right? In the back of my mind, I wonder if the day will ever come when I sit down to write and just get a whole heap of nothing. Like, my characters are half way through a pivotal conversation and then the connection will go dead, like someone yanking out the power cord on the TV. No more movies. Then what will I do? I suppose that might be a secret fear of all pantsers.

But, back to Alastor and Nakita. I might be three quarters of the way through their story, but I don't know how it's going to end. I don't know how their situation is going to resolve itself. But I know it will. They always do. And as for the series arcing idea of the war between the angels and demons? I have no idea how that's going to play out either. Characters are revealing themselves all the time. Some are good, some are quite obviously evil, and some are those shady characters you never quite know about, they could go either way. Things are starting to stack up in a way I'd never guessed about when I started writing Sanctuary. Eventually there's going to be an end-of-the-universe type battle, but I don't know when or how it's going to come about. In a lot of ways, it's fairly disconcerting!

So readers can ask me all they want what's going to happen and whose book I'm going to write next, but unfortunately I'm as much in the dark as the rest of you.

And I don't know where I'm going.

Sanctuary available now from Noble Romance Publishing

To win a copy of Sanctuary (the very last copy I have to give away!) leave a comment below. And because I'm (lazy) such a nice person, I won't even make you answer a question.

Good luck everyone!