I Am Hopeless (Edited with a Note)

So yesterday Bob and I were talking about if we wanted to keep going with the HWSWA chats, and he suggested we show up next week (a week from tomorrow) with the conflict box for a new book he’s working on and one of the old books I’ve been working on (Lily, You Again, Lavender, whatever). I said, “Or I could start a new book,” and he said, “Finish something,” which was the right answer because the last thing I needed was a new book.

Then around midnight last night, I was reading a Book Bub blurb, and started to think what I could do with that very common premise and suddenly these people were talking in my head and I loved it and I wrote 4500 words.

But no antagonist. No conflict. No story. Honest to god, I did not need another first chapter with no conflict and no antagonist, just a lot of snappy banter. And if I show up with that next week and give it to Bob “It’s About The House” Mayer, the scorn and derision will know no bounds. Hell, I feel scorn and derision for me.

I don’t even have a title for it. I think the heroine’s name is Anna, and she’s a librarian. I don’t know what the hero’s name is, she didn’t want to know, she told him not to tell her, and so far, it’s all her PoV. Her ex is named Jason because for some reason Jason and Bradley are my Dick Names. Her friend at work is Magnolia. I have no idea why. I don’t even know why they’re librarians. I have no idea what he does for a living. The first part of the story starts in Vegas, but they both leave at the end of the four thousand five hundred words and go to different places. They must meet again at some point, but I have no idea how or why. They do not fight crime, nor is he her new boss, nor does she get pregnant, nor does he have to protect her. The possibilities are not endless.

Her new boss in named Blake Rankin. Maybe he’s the antagonist.

Maybe next time I’ll start with an outline. That could be good.

Addendum: I wrote this at 3AM and set it to post at 5. Then I fell asleep and as far as I can remember did not dream, but when I woke up, I had a plot. It’s a caper and I lied, they probably will fight crime. I forgot that if you go to sleep right after you’ve written a lot, the Girls keep working. I even have a kind of structure. The first five thousand words are one night in Vegas in her PoV (Part One). The next five thousand words are one day in DC in his PoV (Part Two). Then they start working together until they hit the first turning point (Part Three) and then I think it’s just the next three acts (Parts Four, Five, Six). So One and Two are five thousand words and Three, Four, and Five are around twenty-five thousand and then Six is fifteen thousand. I will not, of course hit those marks, but that’s ball park. It’s a romance about art theft. Or fraud. Or something. She works in a museum library. He’s an expert on art fraud. Or theft. Or something. It’s not an accident that they ended up in the same casino on the first page of the book. Also, they meet on the first page instead of my usual two-intro-scene start, so I’m good there.

Still no title. But I can use the research on both this and Stealing Nadine, so that’s good. I can have Carter work with him, although only as a minor character here. Still no name for the guy, although she calls him Charlie in Part One, so I have that.