Brewing a Batch of Story

I confess, I didn’t use to write from outlines. Once I knew how a story ended, it killed my interest in the project. That changed with Stormcaller, and I think I write better because of it. Less rambling, more consistency. I tried to wing it with The Praetorian Agenda and fell flat on my face. Cranking out 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo felt like a chore, like actual work, because I didn’t know where the story wanted to go.

I took a break after November, partially to work on some short-term contra...