Late and Distracted

Hi Everyone!

Between my fridge acting up (Of course, it also distracted me so much that I almost forgot that it was my blog day!), preparing for a couple days of down time, website maintenance and all the guest blog stuff, I am surprised I have time to breathe, let alone write, but it finds a way. Sure, I may not be writing much, and it may still be in my head, but the ideas are ever forthcoming and inspiration is always there in the form of tiny details.

Who cares about tiny details when you have to come up with thousands of words?

Well, it's those tiny details that come now, that will allow for lots of words, situations, characters and their dialogue later that you never would have considered if it wasn't for one tiny detail.

What's nice about tiny details is that they can stay tiny or they can become huge to a subplot or the main plot.

For example, a detail about a secondary person could be that they craft glass flowers. This detail can remain minor in the sense that it was how they came in contact with the main character (much the same way as buying a horse or a book can be minor) or it could turn into a huge facet of the plot.

In this instance, the focus of the plot could be some majorly antique and priceless crystal artifact that someone is looking for. You could go through the entire plot twist to find that the item in question gets destroyed or lost at sea.

The kicker?

Well, the item that everyone was chasing is a complete fake (or hoax even) and it is later discovered that the artist in question (who had very little to do with the rest of the story), is the creator of the fake artifact, but knows where the real one is and who has it, leading up to what could be the biggest action of the book or a great opening for the next in the series.

If any of you have read Ice Blue by Anne Stuart, you see a similarity here, only in this book, her tiny detail was that the item in question was a ceramic bowl. If you haven't read it, I'm not going to spoil it for you. It was a RITA Award-winning novel and I thought it was darn good and well worth a read!

So, the next time you're frustrated about just getting tiny details, show your muse you appreciate them too, and eventually, the rest will happen.

Happy Reading and Writing! Always use a bookmark and never dog ear the pages.

Don't own any bookmarks? Well, besides all the ones you can print on paper for free, you can always contact authors (like Heidi Betts and Lori Foster) and get free ones.

Know any authors besides Heidi that offer free bookmarks? Let us know and we'll start compiling a list of where you can find free stuff from authors.