Spiderweb Thoughts–the first stages of a new book

Last we met I talked about how I wanted to start working on the outline of a new book. Well, I’m not quite to the outline part yet, but I am figuring out the book. I’m world building and character building. I’m figuring out where this book wants to go. It’s both fun and incredibly frustrating.

Every book I’ve written has been set in modern times and in Southern California–for the most part. But this book is going to be set in some make-believe world, which means I have to make this world and name it’s places and things. Holy crap that is hard. I’ve never appreciated how difficult it is to figure out names. No wonder people named places after kings and queens and no wonder there are so many First Streets and Main Streets and the like.

I’m cheating a little bit because I happen to have a very large, paper map of Ireland and I am using it to help me visualize this world. After all, I did go on a exploratory trip there last year to get into the pagan, witchy vibe of the story.

I’m also figuring out my main character. I can see her in my head and she’s awesome. She’s a witch and she reads tarot. So I’ve dusted off my tarot cards to re-familiarize myself with that only to realize I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy doing it. So much so, I might start doing it a lot, for real people. Kind of a scary idea, but exciting too.

I already had two decks, which I laid out a couple of spreads with, but they really weren’t doing it for me. So, I got a new deck and I am in love. It’s amazing how writing can bring new and old things into your life. I’ve missed reading tarot. It’s something the women in my family have done for years, my mother was quite adapt at it, but I sort of fell out of doing it before I gave myself the chance to see how good I could be at it.

But this new deck has inspired me and I’m giving myself permission to go at it my own way and it’s really working out for me.

I’m excited to see where else this book will take me. But I also just want to start writing. I’m impatient to put words on the paper and see my word count start ticking away. But I want this to be good. I want it to stand up with the other fantasy books I love to read. I have to give it room to grow.

One thing I’m struggling with is deciding if it’s YA or Adult. I think it’s Adult, but my main character might be on the young side of adult, which might be what’s tripping me up. Though, I may be too hung up on that and just need to plot the book and figure that part out later.

I’m trying very hard to think this one through. I am a plotter-pantser, which means I take the time to loosely outline a book so I know the plot points and the beats I want to hit, but often when I’m writing and I get into a groove, things will morph and improvise and then I have to adjust the outline to work with the changes. I like this way of writing because I don’t limit myself, but with this new book, I want to make sure I have a really strong outline, a clear map, that helps me get through to the end. When  a book is a bigger, more epic fantasy you want to make sure you know where you’re going so you don’t get lost.

And, normally, by this point I know the ending of the book. But this time? I’m not sure yet. Usually I can see a still of the last, big scene in a book. It’s a perfect freeze frame and I know exactly what is happening in that moment so I just have to figure out how to get there from the start, but I don’t have that picture in my head yet. I think this book might be an ass-kicker.

I had no idea where this post was going when I sat down to write it, so I just started typing. I guess this is kind of a window in to the mind of a writer when we’re first figuring out a new project. It’s a little crazy, a little messy, but things connect. Like a spiderweb.

Books, man, they are strange, living things that really take over your world if you let them.