For far longer than I anticipated, I’ve been working on Bring On the Broccoli (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 7). I wrote a draft that took me over 3 months to complete, which is nearly twice as long as my drafts usually take, and then realized that that draft was mostly unusable. There wasn’t enough action, and Kyle Slidell, my vegan werewolf who narrates this book, was almost entirely just narrating instead of being part of the story. Some aspects of the story didn’t work, and some either contradicted or ignored plot points from the previous books.
So I started over.
I spent about a week doing a brainstorm/outline of the book, which isn’t something I typically do, but this time it felt necessary so I could make sure the book actually proceeded as planned. The brainstorm came to 15 pages, longer than some short stories I’ve written.
And within the first week of working on the new draft, the outline was pretty much out the window. Because my werewolves are oppositional cusses.
I kept working on the book, but after a while decided I needed a new brainstorm/outline so I could keep track of what was going on. I spent about 3 days on the new brainstorm.
And now half of *that* one is out the window.
On the plus side, the book is proceeding much more smoothly than the original draft. Even though the werewolves keep throwing me curveballs. I hope to have this draft finished within the next week or so.
Bring On the Broccoli will be available in January. (Unless the werewolves have other ideas.)