Deborah Cooke: Author

…some real blog posts must fall. This is one of them.

In the midst of all this release promo – and that upcoming holiday stuff too – I’ve been writing a book. EMBER’S KISS will be #8 in the Dragonfire series of paranormal romances and it will be published in October 2012. The writing of this book is running a bit late, what with everything else that’s been going on this year, but today I reached a magical point.

I have reached the junction where I know there is too much story left to tell for how many words I have left to tell it.

It’s a huge relief to reach this point. Until I do, and this happens on every single book, I worry that I will never get there. So, it was an enormous relief today to sit with my notepad and doodle for the next scene and realize that there was way too much story to fit into the remaining word count for the book.

I am officially on the downward slope to the end.

But I have too much story. This means that things will need to be tightened and some scenes will need to do double (or even triple) duty. It means that I might have to cut out one of those lovely coordinating plot threads. Solving this calls for thinking, preferably thinking with string in my hands.

So, I’ve gotten out my yarn swift and some skeins of yarn that just arrived last week, and I am caking them up. It’s a NORO yarn which was on sale – I like that it was a good deal, and I like that it self-stripes. I can fuss with ensuring that the cakes are all wound the same way. It also smells faintly of mothballs, which reminds me of the Tap Phong, a Chinese kitchen and housewares store on Spadina Ave. in Toronto. Most of my dishes came from The Phong – as Mr. Math always liked to call it – as well as a number of ceramic planters. (Here are some reviews of The Phong, and I’m glad to see that there are people as fond of it as we are/were.) Although the smell tickles my nose, it’s making me think of the colour and chaos of Kensington Market – and it wouldn’t surprise me if I find the solution to my plot tangle in my memories of the empanada shop or the produce stand.

Worst case, I’ll load up my subconscious before going to sleep tonight and dream it.

What do you do when you have a plot tangle to unravel?