Insert something brilliant here

Even though I try to make my outlines complete, there are still holes, huge gaps, those places where I need to insert something brilliant. You know, those times and places when you need to think of something but you need to do more research or think some more or whatever — you need something really cool to happen there — something unexpected and way outside of your comfort zone, as well as possibly outside the comfort zone of your character.

Yesterday I realized that I’d reached one of those sections — needed to have something brilliant happen, something so different yet in retrospect so right in terms of story and character and such. I only wrote about 100 words — mainly rewrite of the stuff I had before this section. Then I did some research. And I thought. And I brainstormed some. And I thought some more.

This morning while I was going back over some of my notes, it came to me, suddenly, out of the blue — the actual brilliant thing that needed to happen. That wow moment. No one else is going to think it’s cool — I know that. I’m the only one who’s going to geek out over it. But it is brilliant, it has a kind of hidden shininess to it, and it just works. I’m so very, very pleased.

Quitting after about 500 words, because there are lots of RL stuff I have to do this morning, like sending images to Jeremy so we can update my web site, answering some email, like that.

But wow. That brilliant thing happened, and it ties into the beginning and the end and I’m pleased. This is the kind of thing that can’t be taught, I think. This is the inspiration part of the process. It couldn’t have happened if I hadn’t done the research though — it’s like I have this great pool of primordial soup, all the facts and figures and knowledge about the time and place and characters, and then, sometimes, the lightning hits it just right, and we have life.

Thanks to all for the good wishes about the book. It’s still exciting to me. I’m doing a reading for it here in Laramie on Friday. AND I’ll be doing a reading for WisCon — will publish my WisCon schedule later.