R.I.P. for my current W.I.P. (well, sort of..)

For my first two books (Blood and Groom and Dead Light District) I did not use an outline.  In my head, I knew from the outset whodunit, why and how.  Each of those books practically wrote itself; in fact, each was written in about six months.  I can almost say that each book practically wrote itself.  I got lucky.

The Lies Have It was a different story.  It took six YEARS of starts and stops.  I knew from the start who and why... I kind of knew how too, but the story lacked a solid framework.  Perhaps I should have used an outline; it might have saved me months and months of work!  Who knows?

So, now what about book four... 
Well, I've just declared R.I.P. for my current  W.I.P.  Well... sort of...

The fourth Sasha Jackson Mystery is called Frisky Business.  It's set within the world of the dirty movie business.  I've been poking away at it for about two years.  

This week, I've come to the realization that I need to scrap what I've got and begin anew.  That kind of sucks, but deep down, I am okay with it.  The story was spinning way out of control and I had far too many characters.  If I can't keep the storylines and people straight in my own head, how can I expect readers to??? 

I've spent the past couple of days writing a very detailed outline and I know it will be much smoother to write the book from this point onward.  I can still use lots of what I've previously penned - many of the characters and their backgrounds will be resuscitated, the major story arcs will be retained, the setting remains the same, and I'll rework some of the clues.  

I think that this time around, having an outline will rein me in.  I sure hope so.  I really want to get this story done and get it out there. At the rate I'm going, I expect to finish the manuscript by August if not a bit sooner :)

So, from someone who never thought an outline was necessary, well, I'm singing a different tune now!

Book One is actually Book Three

The Lies Have It (which I refer to as the fetish book or the S & M book) is the third book in the Sasha Jackson mystery series. It’s due to come out in Fall 2011, and I can’t wait for it to be released! You see, even though this will be Sasha’s third mystery, it’s actually the first book, or at least it’s the one I started first. I began writing the fetish book in 2005!


I kept getting stuck on the plot of this book, so I left it on the back burner and had no real plans about writing overall. Then BANG! The idea for Blood and Groom came to me, and I wrote the whole thing in six months and six days.


After that, I tried to do more with the fetish book, but still kept getting stuck on the plot. I liked the overall idea – a murder related to an S & M fetish party – but couldn’t iron out several wrinkles in the plot. Everything I came up with relied too heavily on coincidences and was just too hard to swallow. So, once again I left the S & M book on the back burner.


Then I came up with the idea for Dead Light District, and that book took only five months to write, from start to finish. Its genesis was an essay I did for my MA, and the book practically wrote itself.


Finally, I figured out the plot for the S & M book, and came up with a title for it. The Lies Have It (as it’s now called... but I still think of it as the fetish book). So, book one is actually book three, and even though the other two books were quick to write (six and five months respectively) the third book took about six years! I hope to hell the fourth book will not take nearly as long :)