Uber Writer On A Hot Roof

Okay, not counting Alaska and Australia, HOW HOT IS IT OVER THERE WHERE YOU ARE? I'm melting on the roof here. It must have been at least 110 degrees Fahrenheit, combining weather with heat emanating from very HOT shingles. And it's not even July yet.

A lot of people can't take our humid heat down here in Florida. They dream of it, move down here compulsively, and then regret it afterwards. It's not conducive to brainwork. And all you want to do all day is sit around on the deck drinking ice tea, lemonade, and adult beverages.

Our heat makes people think "simple." We dress simple--teeshirt, shorts, floppies...yeah, we can go out and eat now. We garden simple--dig a hole, put a bush in, water in...it'll grow. We even write simple--think of Hemingway's short sentences. We just don't. Have. The. Energy.

When I'm on the roof, I don't think about the heat. Once you can conquer the urge to think it's hot, you're on the way to surviving as a roofer. Some roofers moved down here from up north, thinking they could make some bucks from the hurricane damaged houses, and they melted under our heat. It's all about survival once you're on the roof--can you walk across it during midday without thinking of the Sahara desert burning the bottom of your feet?

It's the same with writing. Once you start thinking of the NUMBER of words you have to generate for your book, you're lost. Beaten. Done. But as a contracted writer, I have to. Unless you're mega-uber, a manuscript in my genre is always kept within 100,000 words. So I play a game, just like I do on the roof. For myself, I write in scenes rather than chapters.

Sometimes, when I'm very, very hot on the roof, instead of pausing, I start to shingle faster, just so I could be distracted. In writing, unfortunately, there is no such thing as writing faster and faster. Not for this author, anyway. Some scenes are easier than others, that's all. So, to trick myself, I sometimes tell myself if I have to absolutely end this book at the end of this chapter, happy ending or no, how would I finish it? So with that "goal" in mind, I try to get my chapter done, and thus add another few thousand words to the overall 100,000 I need. Sounds so simple! ;-).

All this is great but it definitely doesn't help my synopsis writing, which is a required thing also, if you want to sell a book to your editor. What is your story about? And what's the plot? "Uh, can I write the book first?" only works for Nora Roberts.

So this is my dilemma this weekend as I try to think about my Book II synopsis. I know how it starts...great beginning. I know how it ends...oh yeah, wow, you should read the ending! But the middle, well, that's kind of fuzzy. You know, that secret monitor...he makes love to Hell a lot. And kills some bad spies. And Hell, she does this and that and oh yeah, I'd like to bring a submarine into the plot.

Will that do? Sigh. I didn't think so either. How can five to ten pages be soooo tough to write when I just finished 100,000 words, huh? My brain is just wired wrong.

The heat and writing must be getting to me. I need to go see this movie:

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