A demon and a blood doll
sitting in a tree
K... I... S... S... I... N... G.
​First comes blood, then comes money, then comes devotion in a hell mouth moorage.

​No clever anticdotes today. Just that I'm still at the first stages of writing. I've taken on a fun ghost writing project that I can't talk about. 

Wah-wah.

So, instead of some long winded background on the story, I'm going right into the excerpt!

PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS A ROUGH DRAFT. SPELLING, PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR ERRORS WILL BE CORRECTED BY A PROFESSIONAL EDITOR WHEN THE FINAL VERSION IS PUBLISHED.

THIS SCENE MAY OR MAY NOT BE THE FINAL VERSION IN THE BOOK.

all characters, places and setting are from the imagination of the author. Any resemblance is strictly coincidental. ​

I hated when I woke up dead.
My conscious swam to the surface still drunk from blood loss. My arms and legs weighed as much as steel pipes and didn’t budge when I tried to move. I thought about opening my eyes… after the rhinos got off my lids. The only thing working was my voice. Barely.

A moan, soft and low hummed in my mouth. I could feel my lips vibrate, but forming words was a challenge.

Small, consistent breaths helped oxygenate the blood in my veins. I was awake which meant I’d recovered from blood loss. How long I’d been out—that would be determined by how many of Lilly’s texts I’d missed.

Scratchy fabric resisted the efforts of my wiggling finger. The air touching my skin felt stale. The clothes I wore were not my own, but I didn’t smell the tell-tell chemicals of a morgue, yet it was silent as death.

There was nothing like waking up on a metal cold table, and startled morticians. A note in my purse labeled, in case of my death left specific instructions to not embalm, cremate or perform an autopsy on me. I was to be laid out and left alone. Preferable in the shade.

It was cases like this that made me paranoid. I did not want scars or to find out what happened when I woke up with embalming fluid. Since it was my blood that resurrected me, cremation would certainly kill me.

Times like these also made me wonder if Jesus was a blood doll.

Strength seeped into my bones and my senses became more aware. I opened my eyes to—beige.

Linen covered my body. Best case scenario, someone thought I was cold. Really cold. All the way up to my ears cold. Worst case, they thought I was dead. Either way, I was taking off the itchy covering.

I slid back my arms and raised up from my elbows, pawing the sheet off my face.

A crucifix stared back at me.

The chapel-like setting was small. Humble. Personable. As if I’d entered a mini church. A stained-glass window the size of a medieval castle tower cast soft lighting onto the cross. In reality, the size could have been affected by my angle and the spinning in my head.

Three rows of pews centered the room. Diego sat front and center with his head bowed, eyes closed, and hands clasp together in prayer.

I didn’t want to disturb him. If I were really quiet, I could sneak past him and be off as if this whole affair was over. As if I hadn’t been eaten by a Balrog.

I slowly swung my legs down and laid the sheet aside. But I’d misjudged its weight and the linen dropped to the floor with a whoosh.

Diego’s blank stare met my gaze.

He blinked.

Uh-oh. His face held the scared disbelief of the one mortician I’d freaked out. Before I could reach out and tell him not to… he screamed with the enthusiasm of a twelve-year-old girl. Diego thrashed backward into the second and third row of pews as if I were a demon. 

Disbelief rooted my butt to the table. Here was the guy who stared down the ugliest mo-fo I’d ever seen, and he was frantic because I’d woken up? Granted he thought I was dead, but still… he’d stared down a force of darkness and evil.

“What is your problem?”

“Warren!” Diego’s voice cracked at the last syllable splitting his screaming to a high-pitch wail. “Warren!”

Last time he called that name, I died. “Hold on…” My hands rose in supplication. “Hold on…”

Diego yelled louder.

I jumped off the stone slab, searching for my shoes. No such consideration of footwear was left for me.

The flutter of wings, the air shifted, and there, behind Diego stood the tallest man I’d ever seen. He had to reach seven feet. Being five foot nine meant I saw eye to eye with most guys. But he made me feel petite even from fifteen feet away.

Diego swallowed, flailing backward until he bumped into who I assumed was Warren. I couldn’t blame the kid. He thought I was a walking corpse.

“I can explain.” My arms fell to my sides.

Diego looked up at the man and pointed at me. “Wa… Wa… Warren?”

“Then explain.” Warren snarled at me, pushing Diego behind him.

Wait one fucking minute. Warren. My addled brain started connecting dots. “You.” I pointed at him. His frown didn’t resemble the gleeful malice, but it was the same guy. His shaggy brown hair, the same red-gold eyes. This was same demon that ate me.

“You were dead,” Diego peeked out from behind his flesh-shield and adjusted his glasses. “He killed you.”

“Not very well.” Warren’s right hand went to an honest-to-Mika sword hilt and pulled out a claymore. “Which I will remedy.”

​“Woah! Woah! Woah!” I backed up. “What the hell?” This wasn’t the only time I’d freaked someone out because of a DOA situation, but this reaction was a first.

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This is not my character. 

While Cynthia Hlady is taking a long vacation from penning illustrations for school, I couldn't wait to find other talent for Blood Money. So I hunted down the talents of Ana Lamas. 

She is very good, but doesn't have the rapport that Cynthia and I have. Still, Ana is a joy to work with and still very talented...

But...

​This is not Makayla. 

What you see above is a wonderful character, but she's not the main character for Blood Money.

​Here, let me show you something...

​LOOK CLOSELY

At first glance Makayla doesn't look all that different from Liam, Kai, Jake, Dan, and the others. But if you look closely, you'll see it in the eyes. The eyes express more emotion than any facial expression. 

Ana is very talented. She's got something really great. And what she illustrated is a beautiful character, but where it falls short is emotion. It's easy to express emotion within facial expressions. Tilt the head, tighten the lips, adjust the pose. But a person and characters soul is expressed  in the eyes.

They are also an extension of yes.

So...

I'm on the hunt. 

What that means exactly might be that I ask Ana to try again. Or I may wait until Cynthia gets back. Or I may try again with another illustrator. I'll keep you posted. 

For now, I have another excerpt for you!

© 2019 S.N.McKibben

PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS A ROUGH DRAFT. SPELLING, PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR ERRORS WILL BE CORRECTED BY A PROFESSIONAL EDITOR WHEN THE FINAL VERSION IS PUBLISHED.

THIS MAY OR MAY NOT BE THE FINAL VERSION IN THE BOOK.

all characters, places and setting are from the imagination of the author. Any resemblance is strictly coincidental. 

Yellow eyes followed me as I walked near the edge of festive college students all pretending to be something they weren’t. For the fifth time I faced my friend, Lilly. But I didn’t look at her. No, my eyes traveled back to my faded blue Honda sitting in the parking lot of yet another rave.

“You won’t find any answers in your car.” Lilly’s topaz eyes sparkle in mischief.

“They’re all insane.” I glanced back to the throng of people and pulled the delicate silk scarf around my neck higher.

“Maybe.” She stepped forward, looking into the crowd. “But your appointment is waiting for you.”

Lilly knew just enough about me and my mission to hopefully point me in the right direction. Or rather, a person in the right direction. While this “appointment” Lilly said was a long shot, for my mother’s sake, I had to try.

The celebration was an invite only party. Lucky me, my friend secured the whereabouts, and everyone was tight lipped about what went on here. Not that anyone was doing anything illegal. Well, except for drugs maybe, but if anyone besides their inner circle knew what went down, it was likely the police would show up. If my vanilla mocha drinking butt got put in the slammer… well, I’d heard women inmates were hard core. I shuttered, not at the company behind bars, but because it reminded me too much of my past.

But the drugs weren’t the unusual part of this rave.

The same pair of cat-like eyes staring at me from inside the edge of partygoers tilted, daring me to enter the fray. The man attached to those eyes was a blond, tall, gorgeous pretender.

He wasn’t the only one wishing to be somebody else. Something else.

A sea of black lace, gothic motif and a range of contacts from color enhancing to pupil altering relaxed my nerves. The monsters I dealt with did everything within their power to fit in. These people were doing anything to look like vampires. If only they knew the reality.
Mr. Gorgeous Pretender smiled and flashed a pair of porcelain canines far longer than any humans.

“Dear lord, is that Diego Sanderson?” I whispered over my shoulder to Lilly.

But she was gone.

Typical. She always left the fun part to me.

“What’s your name?” Mr. Gorgeous loomed over me. He held an air of superiority in a black suit that could make a girl swoon. But he reminded me too much of the monsters that drained my kind dry over and over. His vertical slit iris contacts were too spot-on, his needle thin canines too life-like, and he spoke without a lisp that real people with removable teeth could not imitate without practice. Lots and lots of practice.

He stared at me, waiting for an answer, bemusement curving his lips.

Catatonic helplessness rooted me to the spot. I looked everywhere—anywhere else. I tried shaking off the terror, assuring myself with the blade under the ankle of my jeans, and reasoning with all I knew about real vampires. His skin was too rosy to be undead. If I could reach out and touch him, I bet I’d find warmth. His pupils didn’t dilate. But there was so much he had right. The motions, the look, the insufferable confidence. Everything was too coincidental for him not to have at least seen an eternal damned.

Mr. Gorgeous’ near likeness threw me off and made me revert to an eight-year-old child. Alone. Afraid. And running from monsters with nothing more than an antique blade. The heirloom was longer than a knife and shorter than a sword, but it was all I had left of a world I’d left behind along with my mother.

His smile faded and a film of concern clouded his face. Then he blinked and wrapped his hand in mine. Mr. Gorgeous radiated heat. “Hey,” he said. “Are you all right?”

A true vampire could imitate life, but his human reaction made me feel better all the same. I broke out of my fright and started breathing again. “Fine. I’m fine.”

He smiled with his sharp teeth once more in impish delight. “You seem new to the scene.”

“And you seem to have joined it because you like to scare the crap out of people.” I flashed an angry look his way.

“Guilty.” Mr. Gorgeous laughed and pulled back. “I do like watching people’s reactions. But I like frightening beautiful, young ladies the most.” He held out his hand. “Thomas.”

A wave of relief let the last of my tension go. He wasn’t the man I was supposed to meet. “Makayla.” I shook his hand.

“Beautiful name for a beautiful lady.”

Oh, a charmer. “Thank you.” I started looking around. Diego, the person I’d made an appointment with, said he’d be wearing a suit. Which was why I thought Thomas was my buyer. If he had been, I might have declined.

“What brings you here, Makayla?” He purred my name.

“I’m meeting someone.” Within the ocean of vampire goth’s, I hoped Diego would wear something other than black.

“How much for an ounce?” He eyed my neck.

I pulled back and faced Thomas. “How do you know I’m not meeting a friend?”

He raised a hand and tickled the ends of my neck scarf. “You’re not the only donor who wants to cover their scars.”

I stepped back. “I already have an appointment.”

“So formal.” He smirked enough to let his fang pinch his lower lip.

From twenty feet away, a pair of glasses shimmered and through them, back eyes fixated on me. A dark haired, olive skinned kid in a blazer and khakis came strolling over. His lopsided smile and shorter stature disarmed any panic button that might have triggered from being spotted. I hated being seen. Being seen meant trouble.

“Excuse me,” I dismissed Thomas and stepped up to the new guy.

“Hello,” the new guy said. “Are you Makayla?” He looked behind me and frowned.

“Yes. Are you Diego Sanderson?”

His attention came back to me and he nodded with that disarming grin.

Oh, thank the lord.

Diego was no taller than my own five-foot nine height. Messy, short, black hair, nerd glasses hiding his soft brown eyes and a face that screamed naïve, take advantage of me made a world of difference relieving my apprehension. “Donating” my blood to wanna-be vampires paid the rent but made for nerve-wracking first meetings.

Behind me Thomas’s buttery voice sent my spine rigid. “Sanderson.”

Diego flicked his eyes over to Thomas, grinned and nodded. “Hi Tom.”

In etiquette terms, Diego might as well have slapped Thomas in the face. Shortening a vampire’s name, even a wanna-be vampire, was like telling him his rank and title were worthless. I knew of some humans that didn’t like their names shortened. But these people weren’t vampires, or rather pretending to be vampires. A group of humans that had no idea about the horrors they badly portrayed.  

“I was not done talking with the lady.” Thomas stepped closer to my back and dread sunk all the way to my feet. He might not be a vampire, but he ignored personal space like any other undead.

“She came here for me.” Diego extended his arm, inviting me into refuge.

A warm hand settled on my shoulder and words whispered in my ear. “Don’t go with him, Makayla.”

Diego remained smiling but his eyes grew intense. He was no longer looking at me, but at Thomas.

The pause in conversation sent the tiny hairs along my neck to stand on end. Thomas’ hand slipped off my shoulder and Diego broke out in another grin. This one triumphant.

“Makayla, let’s talk away from prying eyes.” Diego swept past me and back towards my car.

I looked back to find Thomas ramrod straight, lips pressed thin with a look of pity in his eyes. “It was nice to meet you, Makayla.” Then Thomas turned disappeared into the fray.

“Wait!” Damn. Thomas seemed the best candidate for finding out information, but I pulled myself together and followed Diego towards the parking lot. Catching up to him was easy even if he marched on a mission, but I didn’t let my guard down.

“Excuse me, Diego, that’s far enough.”

He turned and flashed wide eyes of worry but managed a pleasant grin. I was beginning to see how he used his innocent look to his own favor. I held out my palm. “This is as far as we go.”

Diego took my hand in both of his. Brown doe eyes peered into my soul. “Kayla, I understand about your reservations, but I need you.”

His puss-in-boots power of cute harmlessness nearly undid me. Voices in the back of my mind, soft but insistent offered assurances. He won’t hurt you. You can trust him. There’s nothing to fear. Go with him. Gentle, invisible hands pulled me forward.

“Stop.” I shook my head and tried pulling away from his hold, but he didn’t let go. “I don’t know if you’ll hurt me, I don’t believe I can trust you, there certainly is something to fear from you and I’m not going with you.”

His eyes widened as his lips parted and his face paled. “There certainly is something different about you.”

I tried tugging my hand free again, but he held it firm. “Let me go.”

“I can’t.”

“What?” Oh god. What have I gotten myself into? I craned my neck to see if I could find someone, anyone. Where was Lily when I needed her?

“Kayla!” Diego grabbed the back of my head and pulled me into his chest. “Don’t make me do this.”

“Let me go!” I struggled.

“If you go with me now you can name your price.” His eyes pleading, still soft, urged me to take his offer.

“I can’t name my price if I’m dead!”

The look of horror on Diego’s face couldn’t be faked. But I brought my knee up between his legs.

He swerved, and snarled, bringing down the mask of innocence he represented so well. A faint red light glowed from inside his pupils and his grip ratcheted tighter.

Oh shit! How had I misjudged him so badly.

Welcome to the new 2020 format theme where text comes first and picture second. The short reason is... my internet is slow. The extended explanation is in this blog post.

Since this update is about Blood Money, I'll give you the run-down...

If you're looking for the latest updates on this story, click "Blood Money" under the CATEGORIES on the side-bar column on the right. 

There is something freeing about having an outline for a story. It's a base. While one of my mentor's, John Truby, boasts most successful authors write an outline for a story, I know of some pretty successful authors that don't use an outline. At all. Like, none. 

Sometimes I think an outline is used for showing to an editor, publisher or director/producer that you have an idea and to prove you know where to go with that idea.

I love the outlining process. It's almost my favorite part. But writing for me has always been about self discovery. It's a discovery of the world around me. I may want to go to Tibet, and I can... with my imagination from just a few pictures. 

Everything about the world is part of your own interactive experiences. 

And with those words to ponder you might think, what does story and existence have to do with each other?

Now, because I feel like going down a rabbit hole, I'm going to *squirrel* for a moment and talk about technology and state of affairs...

Don't worry, it won't be as boring as it sounds. I promise. 

Everything I say is profound. (Eye-roll)

Really, this won't be painful.

I'm not that smart.

Many see the side of technology taking away jobs and that's fine. I know all about survival and doing things you need to do to survive. Like taking a shitty job to make sure you and your family have money to be okay. 

But what people don't see is that they have the opportunity to go find something to do that something they really like. Something that will change the world. 

Let's say you've just been fired from your shitty McDonald's job that really should have been seen as a start of your career, not a place to wallow and meander while you live paycheck to paycheck and never going out of your way to sloth through life.

Desperation sets in.

How will you pay rent?

How will you get food?

How will you get another job?

Nobody likes to feel desperate, but there you are, a week away from homelessness. Yes, you feel weak. You feel devastated. You feel lost. No, you are not the only one whose lost your job. Droves of people are applying for the same positions as you.

But there are endless testimonials of people who've shaken themselves off the ground and found the earth-shattering, life-changing thing they want to do. 

Effectively, you should thank McDonald's because they told you to go fucking find the thing you love to do and make money doing it. 

But there are plenty of people who look around and find a job right away that's similar to the slothing they've done since the beginning of their working ability. To those people, I'd say... 

Thank goodness you found a job. There is no shame in tucking your potential to take care of family. Or, you must not be ready for your own greatness. 

But those people, who found another job at Burger King, failed to rise above, they failed to become the underdog. They did not find the thing that wanted to do to make money for the rest of their lives.

OR DID THEY? 

Maybe that waitress job is hard, but they love the service they provide people.

No, it's not giving out plates of food to the homeless but it's service. 

Maybe they are giving their all to cooking, cleaning, or *name a menial task here* and this IS their life's work. 

What I'm getting at is...

Technology can only do so much.

One day, technology may replace the worker in the field that farms. I've seen farming machines you can buy for five grand. Technology already helps doctors diagnose what's wrong with patients. Did you think people spin little bottles of your blood sample all day long? If you had a robot assistant, that technology could keep you alive longer and also give you independence long after your nineties. Care giver robot at my beck and call? I can't wait to scream, "Siri! Get me some water!"  

Plus, do you really want to work at McDonald's all your life?

If you do, then, why? What makes it worth your time?


Anyway, I can see this has gone down the rabbit hole a bit. I'm supposed to give you an excerpt and maybe a character sketch, but now that I have my mind running in circles I think all I have the energy for is an excerpt! 

How about it?

Excerpt from WIP title: ​Blood Money

Yellow eyes followed me as I walked near the edge of festive college students all pretending to be something they weren’t. For the fifth time I faced my friend, Lilly. But I didn’t look at her. No, my eyes traveled back to my faded blue Honda sitting in the parking lot of yet another rave.

“You won’t find any answers in your car.” Lilly’s topaz eyes sparkle in mischief.

“They’re all insane.” I glanced back to the throng of people and pulled the delicate silk scarf around my neck higher.

“Maybe.” She stepped forward, looking into the crowd. “But your appointment is waiting for you.”

Lilly knew just enough about me and my mission to hopefully point me in the right direction. Or rather, a person in the right direction. While this “appointment” Lilly said was a long shot, for my mother’s sake, I had to try.

The celebration was an invite only party. Lucky me, my friend secured the whereabouts, and everyone was tight lipped about what went on here. Not that anyone was doing anything illegal. Well, except for drugs maybe, but if anyone besides their inner circle knew what went down, it was likely the police would show up. If my vanilla mocha drinking butt got put in the slammer… well, I’d heard women inmates were hard core. I shuttered, not at the company behind bars, but because it reminded me too much of my past.

But the drugs weren’t the unusual part of this rave.

The same pair of cat-like eyes staring at me from inside the edge of partygoers tilted, daring me to enter the fray. The man attached to those eyes was a blond, tall, gorgeous pretender.

He wasn’t the only one wishing to be somebody else. Something else.

A sea of black lace, gothic motif and a range of contacts from color enhancing to pupil altering relaxed my nerves. The monsters I dealt with did everything within their power to fit in. These people were doing anything to look like vampires. If only they knew the reality.
Mr. Gorgeous Pretender smiled and flashed a pair of porcelain canines far longer than any humans.

“Dear lord, is that Diego Sanderson?” I whispered over my shoulder to Lilly.

But she was gone.

Typical. She always left the fun part to me.

“What’s your name?” Mr. Gorgeous loomed over me. He held an air of superiority in a black suit that could make a girl swoon. But he reminded me too much of the monsters that drained my kind dry over and over. His vertical slit iris contacts were too spot-on, his needle thin canines too life-like, and he spoke without a lisp that real people with removable teeth could not imitate without practice. Lots and lots of practice.

He stared at me, waiting for an answer, bemusement curving his lips.

​Catatonic helplessness rooted me to the spot. I looked everywhere—anywhere else. I tried shaking off the terror, assuring myself with the blade under the ankle of my jeans, and reasoning with all I knew about real vampires. His skin was too rosy to be undead. If I could reach out and touch him, I bet I’d find warmth. His pupils didn’t dilate. But there was so much he had right. The motions, the look, the insufferable confidence. Everything was too coincidental for him not to have at least seen an eternal damned. 

This marks the end of this excerpt for today. I'll keep you appraised of the story next month! If there isn't a "next episode" button, check the sidebar under categories and click "Blood Money" for other updates! 

Until next time...
...happy reading!

~ Stephy

I completed the plot for Blood Money and was working on the scene list (using you and this blog as a sounding board) to complete my story. I didn't feel like it was finished, but I charged on ahead anyway claiming─

Oh, how true, even in this case. 

So, before I started working on the plot, I wrote 8K (word count) way back in September to get the story "fleshed out". Because, I wanted to find the story.

Then, after writing nearly 10K words, I worked on the outline. 

Yes, I understand that's ass backwards. Don't question genius. 

If you just ignore it, it will go away. 

carry on...

Once I had the outline, based on my first 10K words that I wrote, I worked on the scene list.

Yay, scene list!

But, I had to abandon the 8K previously written. 

Why? Because...

Somewhere in this post I'm going to put that advice in a third time because I have to keep reminding myself that most battle plans never survive contact.


Yes, I know what I did there.

​There's a Neil Gaiman story that I just love and refer to during this stage of writing. It goes as such:

Neil Gaiman was with his idol, mentor and friend boasting about American Gods and pronounced... I KNOW HOW TO WRITE NOW!

(Meaning he knew how to outline and puzzle events in a book to create drama with the most impact.) 

And Neil Gaiman's idol, mentor and friend said:

*as the mentor pointed to Neil Gaiman's novel, American Gods.*

​Neil Gaiman then understood that each and every book an author writes is a discovery. 

Discovery of oneself, of the process, of the meaning... of the story they tell. 

Not ever book is the same.

The formula is meant to do the heavy lifting, just like John Truby says.

But the heavy lifting is putting thoughts on paper to clear the way for other ideas.  

Or, in other words...

Did I really "waste" time and the 8,000 words already written? 

Or is that part of my process so I don't hold onto an irrelevant thought?

Even now, I'm discovering different facets of the story I will add. And they all lead to a different battle plan. 

So while I do have a start of a story I'm going to keep, and I have a "roap map" of sorts on how to get there, it looks like (again) I'll be taking the scenic route. 

Lost, alone and running from the world's deadliest demons, Makayla races to find her mother among monsters before it's too late... 

A struggling college student who feeds vampires for money finds herself the prize in a war between two blood sucking families.

I have been working on this story since the  end of September (7 weeks now).

Getting the scene list organized took a week in itself. But I feel as though something is still missing. Because my experience is limited I don't know what that is. 

So I'm going to use you as a sound board. 

Here goes...

I have:
The heroine
Two Oppositions, one is a fake ally
A fake ally other than the opposition
A fake opponent, who is also the hero/love interest and the red herring
A sub-plot character that reflects the heroine
I have a "talisman" that is a knife
The McGuffin can be counted as the hero's mother.  
 
Have I missed anything?

I'm feeling a twist isn't in that list yet there is one, and it's fairly big.

Maybe the plot is too simplistic?

Maybe I'm trying to figure out something that doesn't need to be figured out?

Maybe I should write it and learn. 

You see, I can spot things in others writing, but the key is spotting it in my own. Being able to spot it in others writing helps me, but I wonder. I've followed everything Sensei Truby said, but I'm like... isn't there more to this story?

Maybe there is. 

Perhaps this is a series and I don't know it yet. 

Anyway... I'll try to shake off this nagging uncertainty and tell you a little about this new story.  


The premise came to me when a line popped in my head. "My mother named me Chamomile, after the taste of my blood."

​
Now that I've found the big wide world of plotting, I'm trying to do this one from the start. 

Hang on... I'm getting something... it's the three acts. I'm missing the three acts. 

I don't know if I can explain this well, but I'll try.

The three act structure─it's for amateurs.

That's what Les Edgerton taught me. 

So, I continue to grow and BLOOD MONEY is the story I believe will help me learn more about genre writing.   

And outlining is a world I'm learning more about along with this story too. 

Before this novel, I've been writting by a sort of plot-pantsing style. Things have gone okay. But in my hunger of learning more, I knew there was a larger part of writing I wanted to perfect.

That's what John Truby taught me. 

It's also what I've believed to my core. 


So instead of three acts I'm learning what I started doing to begin with.

Narrative drive.

The main character(s) drive the story. There is no three acts. Sure, you can do the whole ​*Pretend there's an excel chart we've all seen, of the three act structure, to fill out here*

So if an outline is the battle plan, and battle plans don't get past first contact (the actual writing of the book), why do an outline?

What a great question!

It's a lazy question, but still deserves a snarky comeback. 

Well, if to grandma's house we go, and we've never been to grandma's house, you kinna need directions. 

Or were you planning on calling grandma and having her on the phone while you drive and describe landmark features?

But, Stephanie, I know how to write a book. See... *holds up paperback of their own novel*

No. You know how to write that book. *Points at authors paperback*

Every book is different.

When each book is written the same you've officially become James Patterson. You have lots of money, but your writing has no soul. It's the same story gone over with different names. 

Those who want to be James Patterson, there's nothing I can do for you. Because what I've learned is...   

And I don't mean just money here. 

I mean if my hunger for writing better, more, faster, stronger were non-existent, I'd never be able to tell this story (Blood Money). I'd never strive for better. I'd never write again. 


​So while I don't have an excerpt for you yet, beware! It's on the way!

Until next time...
​...happy reading!