My process falls somewhere between Outline-The-Hell-Out-Of-It and Let-It-Roll. I do need some overall idea of what the world looks like, what the rules are, and I certainly need to know the characters, but I find a detailed outline impossible to stick with. In the new manuscript, I know the primary character has to travel to certain places and meet other characters in a sequence. But how the characters meet and what they say to each other isn't defined until I sit down and write the scene. Odd things happen. Sometimes a character changes from good to bad, or a new character appears and becomes very important.

Last night I was pushing myself to do a stint on the manuscript. I didn't feel like writing and I certainly didn't feel creative. I had two characters traveling together for a brief time. They had to speak to each other. I had no idea what they were going to say, aside from things already mentioned. Suddenly, one of the characters revealed an important detail absolutely essential to the plot. Now, that is his job in the story. But—and this is where the eerie music plays—I swear I didn't know that detail until the character mentioned it. I discovered it as a reader, not as an author.

This happened to me once when I was writing Matcher Rules, and once or twice during The Bone Road. It cannot be forced. It cannot be speeded up, no matter how much I want to be one of those writers who churns out a novel every three months. The plot development of the novel takes place in the back part of my brain(which I hesitate to call my subconscious, because it isn't). Sometimes bits and pieces float from the back to the front and I write them down. I can depend on it, but I cannot force it. The best I can do is write a bit every day, write the sections I know, link them together, smooth out the rough spots, remove the text that clanks, and repeat. That's when stuff happens. It's the most endlessly fascinating process I know. And every so often: Magic.

I've been re-visiting Kindle Select Publishing. An independent author gets more exposure and certainly a higher percentage of whatever sales she generates: these are good things. But they demand exclusivity, so I'd have to take my title(s) off of Smashwords and all the other sources they distribute to. I don't like monopolies. I don't like large corportations snuffing out tiny independents not because they are serious competition but just because they can.

But I have been thinking of KDP for at least a three month trial. And I'd almost decided to go for it, until two days ago. I recently changed the thumbnail cover on The Bone Road. I changed nothing else. It's annoying and big-corporate that, because I already have a copy of The Bone Road on my Kindle app, I apparently couldn't download the new version with the new cover. However, I had several people I trust check it out. They assured me the new cover was on new purchases.

Actually, it WAS on my Kindle reader. Under 'M'. My last name is gone. After several days of hair-tearing and experiments, it appears the metadata no longer includes my last name, and that neither on Amazon's interface nor using Calibre to correct and upload the file can this be fixed. When I take the DRM-free .mobi file from Smashwords and load it to the Kindle reader, both my last name and first name are there, but it still lists under 'M'. Amazon's interface smooshed the first name and last name fields together. So it's possible to get a correct ebook file of The Bone Road on your Kindle, as long as you don't get it from Amazon.

I have a query in to Amazon Customer Service. Other people, according to their own forums, have been having this problem. Recently. As far as I can tell, no one from Amazon is addressing it. At least no one on the forums is getting a response.

In the meantime, I've been sending .mobi copies hither and yon to various book reviewers and writing contests. You know, I hate appearing as an incompetent idiot. I've done it, and many times it has been my fault. I suck it up and try to do better. But when I look like an incompetent idiot through no fault of my own, that's when I get angry.

He had a thick hardcover book on his lap. He was absorbed, lost in the story. The chairs are not comfortable so he was wriggling and twisting as he read, but he never looked away from the page. Someone had removed the dustjacket and the spine of the book was rubbed and worn so I could not read the title.

But I knew. I was far enough away so I couldn't read the text over his shoulder. It didn't matter. It had to be a Harry Potter and I was almost sure I knew which one. Then he turned a page and I saw the chapter illustration: the wriggling gilliweed of The Second Task in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

I wanted to say something to him, but all I could think of were the horrible condescending adults from my childhood who would interrupt me constantly with inane questions. "What are you reading? Do you like to read? What's it about?" I wanted to tell him I'd met J.K. Rowling (briefly) and how wonderful it was to hear her read, I wanted to ask him about his favorite part of the book and his favorite characters. I wanted to share mine with him. But I didn't. I watched him and I hoped it was his first time reading Harry Potter. I envied him that.

Total absorption must run in his family. His father left the treatment room, walked through the waiting room and out into the hall before coming back and collecting his son. The boy walked out with his finger holding his place in the book; he wasn't in the Muggle world at all.

I want someone, somewhere, to get lost in one of my books just like that. If I could do that for one person, once, I would be a success as a writer.

Great, isn't it? I've loaded it on all the ebook sites, both Smashwords and Amazon. I also, while I was about it, made a few changes to the blurb. Absolutely NO changes were made to the text, so if you buy the book in paperback, with the old cover, or download the ebook with the new cover, you get the exact same book. Down to the (regrettable) typos. Promise.

Well, I'm sick of it. I think it shows a lack of imagination by the author. Surely you can find a more creative way to exhibit the nastiness of the villain or the harshness of the heroine's life than by having her pet kitten/dog/bunny die of dismemberment, torture, starvation, or homeless wandering. Or have the hero ride a horse to death.

When I say I'm sick of it, I mean that literally. I get nauseous. I stop reading. I leave the theater. It does not add to the drama. It tosses me right out of the experience that you, the author or film-maker, have worked so hard to create. And, spent a lot of money while you were about it, money that you hope to get back from me, your audience.

I understand it's fiction. Hell, I write fiction. I understand the disclaimer: "No animals were injured during the making of this film." I get that the horse probably makes more money than I do. I don't care.

I don't like to watch this violence because in most cases animals are helpless against us, and having violent acts perpetrated on their (fictional) selves encourages real cruelty to real animals. I can't prove this, but again, I don't care.

If you are an author writing fiction, or a film-maker, be creative. Let the puppy live.

On the other hand, if you make your villain human and believable, readers may start rooting for them instead. In the early drafts of Matcher Rules, several of my test readers fell in love with Maxim Bari. I solved this by re-writing Max to be more selfish and manipulative, but also by adding on another villain who manipulated Max. He was after World Domination also, but he was scummy from the beginning so no one complained.

Of course, if you have a story where the evil/good is shared by the hero and the villain you may not be writing genre fiction but modern literature. This may not qualify as a fate worse than death (discuss among yourselves) but it's not where I want to go.

One of the nice things about villains is they can start small and grow into it as they reward themselves with the spoils of their acts. Each outrage builds on the last, so by the time the hero chops them into sushi the reader can, with a whole heart, cheer from the sidelines.

Wrong.

Trying to smooth one part into another was impossible. The tone didn't match, so each sentence was right for its section and wrong together, not to mention the bits of backstory were doubled up and in some cases in complete conflict. So, after a few weeks of muttering, I killed the second section and returned to expanding and clarifying the first. It cut my word count down by half, oh the agony, but it was absolutely the right move.

Each time I approach a manuscript, I think to myself "oh, this one will be easy. The story will just flow out." Well, no.

I do have a lovely new keyboard, a DAS keyboard, very retro, with that wonderful click sound, and a full set of directional and functional keys. It was an early birthday present from my husband and I love it. I hadn't realized how much my reluctance to work on the book was related to the discomfort of typing on the spiffy but tiny and rigid Apple wireless keyboard. Clickety click click, it's the sound of progress.

All progress on everything stopped completely, especially the current manuscript. However, I'm back at it and various bits are falling into place. As of right now there is only one POV and it is a possibility I may stick with him for the entire book. My creative process is always a mystery to me, and I'm fascinated this particular POV showed up late for the party and the primary POV (a female) hasn't said a word yet. I wonder how long I can sustain this, because if you have a great many events in a plot and only one POV your protagonist has to be present for all of them, or hear about them from some credible secondary character as a tell not a show.

Progress is still very slow, but at least there is progress. As usual at this stage I'm feeling as if I'm pushing a large rock up a very steep hill but I remind myself I've been here before and made it up and over the top. The good news is the story is sticking with me and I can feel the back part of my brain plotting away. Can world domination be far behind?

Wid is from 'widdershins', an old word meaning 'counterclockwise'. The corresponding word for 'clockwise' is Deosil, which was the original name for the other moiety. Since the mountain began and remained Deo, I thought it was too confusing for the reader to have Deo, Deom, and Deosil, so I changed Deosil to Zeosil. At one point early on the Wid would travel only counterclockwise, and the Zeosil clockwise but that became impossible to plot character movements against. Their campsites remain on either side of the Road and switch sides depending on which coast you travel.

All my early readers had a problem with the word 'moiety'. It's a perfectly good word, used by sociologists and the definition is exact: either of two kinship groups based on unilateral descent that together make up a tribe or society. However I was told to take it out and for months I struggled with alternates: clan, tribe, sept. None of them seemed right. While I was working on the manuscript of Bone Road I was also independently publishing Matcher Rules and it finally occured to me independent publication meant all the decisions were mine. So I put moiety back into The Bone Road; the entire manuscript snapped into place, and not one reader has either queried or complained. Fantasy and science fiction readers are used to weird or made-up terms; it's part of the experience of the genre, they take them in stride.

Podiobooks has a new and completely revamped website, some parts of which I really like and other parts still in development. One of the things not yet functional is the ratings system, and another is the New Podcasts widget, so even though The Bone Road is very new, you won't find it listed there. Use the link above or the search function. It's also available on iTunes, in the podcast section.

Enjoy! I'd love some feedback (I think they have the Comments working) even if you can't rate it aside from 'Like' on Facebook and Twitter.

UPDATE: They have a new row of thumbnail features, New Releases, up and running. And there is The Bone Road, front and center. Site is coming back up to full functionality really fast, thank you Evo Terra!

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE:

The New Releases on Podiobooks is working wonderfully. I've had over 3,000 downloads for The Bone Road since it came out. I've also noticed a splash effect on Matcher Rules, where the downloads are up also. And, more importantly, feedback indicates the listeners have noticed the improved quality on the recording of The Bone Road. I'm very happy with that, because all that hard work in August is paying off.