Musings over Coffee: On Plotting, Book Mail, and Mac ‘n Cheese

So I’m currently stuck with the second book of my holiday series and I’m really glad I didn’t set up a preorder because it seems in my quest to outline everything, I lost sight of my heroine’s motivations. Yup, normally those things are the first things that I determine in a story.

What makes the heroine tick? What about the hero?

I usually nail those things down long before I think of the rest of the story. But because I had to layer the second book’s arc over the first book (the events happen during the same period), I got distracted. So, even though I’m 16k words into book 2, I have to go back to the first two chapters and nail the heroine’s motivation and wound first until it’s absolutely concrete in my head.

In the meantime, I realized that after all the teasers I did for Friends with Benefits (even a cover reveal), I dropped the ball! Well, not really. I just set it aside thinking I’d add 5k more words to make it a novel at 40k words. But it’s a holiday-themed story and after much thought, I’ve decided to keep it at 37k words.

A novella then.

Which is okay.

In other news, I received this just in time for the weekend. It’s a signed copy of Reactance, Dacia Arnold’s prequel to Apparent Power which comes out next month. I totally need to put makeup next time but Instagram had the eyeliner filter thing so I figured, why not? I also chopped my hair off last week and although I miss the length, I don’t miss the maintenance. But I do need a manicure…

I also got to make my first ever macaroni and cheese from scratch last night following some old-fashioned recipe! In my quest to find something my picky eater kid will actually eat, I figured I’d try it out minus the dash of hot sauce but alas, the kid’s not thrilled with it. He does like Panera’s mac n’ cheese and so I’ll try their version next.