Writing Bug

Wow, I was up to 3am last night, this morning.  I'm afraid I was bitten by the writing bug, a nice, but exhausting event that occurs about once a week for me, if I'm lucky.

Now get this.  I was balancing writing on 4 manuscripts.  This happened, because as I was researching for one book, I cam across great stuff for the other three.

Oh, BTW, I changed the title of Biggin Hill Manor to Moonlight Manor. This happened, because the Biggin Hill location limited my plot possibilities, where creating a semi-fictional manor gives the author more latitude.  This novel is shaping up very quickly.

Of course, my main focus was on Secret of the Dragon's Teeth and Secret of the Dragon's Wings.  Because these are the final volumes in the series, it requires that all the plots must have continuity and that most of them are resolved.  this also demands that the historical aspects remain true and plausible, while the fantasy element fits.  I might begin with a certain viewpoint and end with a completely different end result, because Thaddeus has his own unique addition to mess things up.  That's the fun part.

Without giving anything away, there's also a fair amount of emotion building to the central climax, both with WWII and especially with Gavin's relationship with Thaddeus.  This means I have to let the story flow in its own direction, without changing the underlying message.  Again, this is the part of the craft I love most.

Then, to take an occasional break, I worked on By the Moon Darkly, my latest YA adventure.  The twins are already developing nicely and I wrote the basics for their misdeeds and disobedience, which leads to the central plot.  Here's where research really makes a difference, because it's vital for me, as the author, to be able to put aside disbelief for plausibility.  With literally tens of thousands of children and teenagers sent out of the cities to the countryside to avoid the German bombing, a myriad of stories and adventures took place.  This social upheaval had an incredible impact on Britain's society in the 50′s and 60′s, one often overlooked.

So when I'm writing about how the twins react to this "compassionate banishment", it requires a realistic emotional response.  Not only that, but throw in a war for good measure and the results should make good reading.

Time to take care of business, but I'll be back later.