aroslav: Blog

This is number thirty-seven in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

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AS YOU KNOW BY NOW, I write my blog posts weeks in advance so my editor can have a crack at telling me how I need to improve them. So, this post was originally penned in mid-October for release on the third Sunday of November.

How could I possibly know, a month in advance, my NaNoWriMo novel would be garbage and I’d regret committing to it?

It happens every year on every project I start.

I spent twenty years researching and planning the Nathan Everett book, The Gutenberg Rubric. I decided this book would be carefully constructed. I would write slowly and meticulously. For a symbolic start, I wrote the first words on January 1, 2009. By August 10th, I had just 42,000 words.

And I hated them all!

I was despondent. This was the book I had been planning for twenty years. Why was it so terrible?
Well, I’ve told the story of my brilliant editor, Jason Black, reading and commenting on the work, giving me direction over the things I couldn’t see. I put the manuscript away for three months and began again on November 1, 2009. Yes, from scratch. I wrote the first words on a blank page.

The book won awards and sold several hundred copies. Not a “best seller” by NYT standards, but certainly my best seller.

Chris Batey, founder of NaNoWriMo, described the point where an author hates it all as ‘the wall.’ In the compressed timeframe of November, it comes crashing in all at once—usually in the third week. I’ve dedicated hours and hours of writing time in the first three weeks of the month, posting rough drafts for my Sausage Grinder patrons to read and comment on. As my fingers drag across the keyboard, I think, “Why did I ever commit to this piece of garbage?”

I have written pieces during NaNoWriMo that never got finished. I hit the 50,000-word goal, but I never finished writing the story. For example, in 2020, I started a story called “It Ain’t Immortality, But…” The premise was that a man with a heart condition nearly dies and is told he is terminally ill. He is recruited by a doctor to participate in an experimental restoration treatment that will return him to the health he would normally enjoy as a thirty-year-old man in the prime of his vigor.

This sounds a little like a do-over, but isn’t. He still has the age he is recruited at. The treatment doesn’t color his gray hair or clear the wrinkles, though some of that is done simply because he becomes fitter and stronger. The problem is that when he gets out of treatment and has this new lease on life, I needed to do something with him. He needed a life, and that was what I wasn’t prepared for. If he goes back to his former sedentary lifestyle, he will age again, even more rapidly. Young women aren’t particularly interested in him because he is neither young nor wealthy. What do I do with him?

When I wrote Nathan Everett’s A Place at the Table, I envisioned a trilogy. The second volume would be A Place Among Peers, and I began writing it in January of 2021. At 80,000 words, I realized I had written myself into a corner. I have not returned to the manuscript since July of 2021. I think, however, that I will. I believe the story is worth telling, and that it will be among the next stories that I start to write again from a blank page. A Place at the Table is now available on Bookapy.

What does all that mean for The Staircase of Dragon Jerico?

Well, I am not abandoning the story. Like a marathon runner, I’m pushing through the wall. And I have some techniques that will help me continue, though they might not improve the quality of the story. Since I am writing this blog post five weeks before I hit the wall, I can’t be specific about what precise impediment the wall represents. I’ll have to unpack my tools and trust that I can pick the right one for the situation.

1. Radical readjustment. This is one of the beauties of having a plan. Let us assume that the story has somehow deviated from said plan and the problem is that I can’t find a path back to it. In a radical readjustment, I will simply stop the story where it is, look at where it should be in the plan, and start again from that point, regardless of what has gone before. This is one of the reasons books need to be edited after they are written. After the draft is finished, I’ll need to rewrite so the initial track leads to the second track.

2. Skip-to-my-Lou. Closely related to the Radical Readjustment, this one comes into play when I don’t know how to make the transition from where I am to where I want to be next. The answer is to simply skip to where I want to be and keep going. Later, I can come back to work on the transition. It’s less complicated than going back to rework half the story.

3. Prompt. Sometimes the problem is simply that I’m blocked by some issue or problem that has arisen for the characters. Writing prompts, of which there are thousands, are typically random thoughts or situations into which your character is suddenly thrust and you need to write about. For example: “Write a scene from the perspective of your story’s antagonist.” This forces a change in viewpoint and opinion. “Make your antagonist a hero for just one scene.” This prompt would force me to think of something good about the bad guy. It helps to round out a character.

4. Music. Identify what kind of music is playing in the MC’s head at this point in the story. Listen to it. What kind of mood does it put the MC in? How does it influence what the MC does next?

5. Interrupt. This is a generalization of the classic “A man with a gun enters the room.” What does that have to do with what is going on in your story? Nothing. It’s simply an interruption your characters must deal with before they can continue. Another classic is “The phone rang.” Or, “The baby cried.” The important thing here is that something interrupts the flow of action you are stuck in and you can pick it up again as soon as you handle the interruption.

6. Enter a word sprint. One of the great things about NaNoWriMo is the community. At nearly any time of day or night, I can contact a writing buddy and enter a word sprint. We’ll talk for a few minutes, then set a timer for fifteen minutes and see which of us can write the most words in that period of time. Then we’ll talk about whether any of them are leading to a breakthrough, then we’ll sprint again. The objective here is to disconnect the critical reader in our heads and let the free writer loose. Once again, I can fix a problem later. I can’t fix a blank page.

So, I have an arsenal of techniques that will help me break through the feeling that the story is hopeless and I should quit writing forever.

Just so you know, I’m not quitting.

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Well, the US Thanksgiving Holiday is coming this week. I’ve made a reservation at a local restaurant for my ‘traditional’ prime rib dinner. Thanksgiving’s also a time traditionally reserved for catching up on NaNoWriMo for those who are behind. Then we have the ever-popular “Sprint to the Finish.” Next week.

This is number thirty-six in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

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I WRITE MY BLOG POSTS a few weeks in advance, so by the time you read this post about the outline development, I’ve undoubtedly already departed from it in significant ways in actually writing the story. I was told once years ago that if I didn’t understand the rules and went around blithely breaking them, I was an idiot. If, however, I knew and understood the rules but broke them anyway, I was an artist.

I feel the same way about the outline. The more detailed and comprehensive my outline is, the easier it is to see where I should depart from it. The real benefit of having this outline, then, is knowing where the mileposts are and when I have passed one on this long journey. The destination remains the same. I just do a little sightseeing along the way.

Thinking of it as a journey is a good way to look at it. When I wrote Aroslav’s three-volume set “Wonders of My World,” including American Backroads, I had an actual journey to record. I drove my truck and travel trailer around the country, staying off interstate highways and generally feeling my way along. I used that map as a journey to hang my imagined adventures on. American Backroads is available on Bookapy.

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With The Staircase of Dragon Jerico, I have a little less leeway regarding how far off the main route I can wander. So, the developmental outline looks very different than the top level outline I disclosed just two weeks ago.

Act I
Chapter 1: Who Was the Artist? The story of the staircase in the Jerico household, and who slept with the lady of the house.
1. Everyone stops and stares at the staircase.
2. Legends abound regarding how Drake Jerico imagined he was descended from a mighty Celtic dragon.
3. A hundred years ago, Levi Jerico discovered a burglar in his home and shot him on the stairs.
4. A third world queen visited Jerico City and had her portrait painted on the stairs.
5. Thirty-five years ago, Jacqueline Jerico married Raymond Carver on the stairs.
6. 200 years ago, Isolde LeClerc was seduced on the stairs by Joseph Carver just days after she arrived at the house.
7. The line of descendants of the Jerico household are actually descended from Joseph Carver and Isolde LeClerc Jerico, not from Drake Jerico. Now they bear his name.
Chapter 2: An Unhappy Marriage. Happily-ever-after falls apart for Erin and Bruce Silver when Bruce has an affair.
1. Erin and Bruce have arrived in Jerico city and are excited to be house-hunting while Bruce starts his new job as an architectural draftsman at JeriCorp.
2. Finding the perfect place to raise a family.
3. Bruce meeting Shannon Duval and flirting.
4. A holiday meeting sends Bruce and Shannon to bed.
5. Royce Duval, president of JeriCorp, discovers them and immediately fires Bruce.
6. Trying to explain himself, Bruce quickly gives up on his marriage and deserts Erin. She files for divorce.
Chapter 3: The Other Woman. Shannon Duval regrets destroying Bruce’s marriage, even though her own husband, the president of the company, is stepping out on her.
1. Shannon and Royce argue and she points out his history of affairs.
2. He insists that the rule has always been ‘Not with anyone in the company.’
3. Shannon vows to get back at Royce for firing Bruce.
4. Shannon begins prowling for the best person with whom to get revenge and arrives at Preston Carver, the Chairman of the Board.
Chapter 4: The Top of the Pyramid. Preston Carver goes to his weekly dinner with mother at Jerico House.
1. Jacqueline resumes what is obviously an ongoing diatribe about getting Preston married.
2. Preston protests that he likes his life as a bachelor and all women want is his money.
3. Jacqueline presents an argument on the benefits of marrying a gold digger, as long as she understands the rules.
4. Jacqueline suggests a woman Preston should go out with and then insists she will arrange things.
Chapter 5: Survival of the Fittest. Erin determines to put her life together even if it means taking the lowliest jobs to get her through.
1. With Bruce abandoning her, Erin loses the house to the bank and has to file bankruptcy.
2. Erin moves into a rooming house and takes a job as a waitress in the local diner.
3. A nice and very quiet guy comes in every Thursday for lunch. She likes him.
4. Erin gets a response to her job applications and gets her hair done for an interview at JeriCorp.

Act II
Chapter 6: Creative Genius. Preston Carver, Chairman of JeriCorp, has another great idea for his company, but Royce Duval, the CEO, will get the credit, of course.
1. Preston puts together a proposal for a new development village, obsessed with the planning and drafting. He stays locked in his office/apartment for weeks.
2. Preston yells at his assistant who breaks down crying and quits.
3. Jacqueline insists Preston go out on a blind date with a woman she has selected, and “try things out.”
4. Preston’s date is disastrous and he returns to his office/apartment to get ready to explain the new development to Royce.
5. Preston yells for his assistant and when he gets no response, he calls HR and finds out she really did quit, but they are interviewing for a new assistant. He tells them what was wrong with the last one.
Chapter 7: A Step Up. Banking on her education, Erin takes a job as Assistant to the Chairman and is told that if she can last there six months, she’ll be moved to a position in marketing for the company.
1. Erin practices her interview techniques that have been unused for a couple of years.
2. She waits on the nice guy again and he wishes her luck on her interview.
3. She talks to HR at JeriCorp and is told the list of rules and duties she will need to fulfill the position. HR says he is “special.” Erin decides, “So, I’ll still be a waitress, but a better paid one.”
4. Erin accepts the position with the promise that if she can last six months, HR will find her another position in the company.
ETC.

The Save the Cat structure has three acts. As you can see from what what I’ve written here, there are more chapters already than what had been in the high-level outline. I’m sure that as I write it, there will be even more. But you can see, at this point, everything looks like it is working out just fine. Erin and Preston have established a relationship through the diner and now, unknown to both of them, she is about to become his personal assistant. Everything is set to fall apart in both of their lives!

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In reality, as of today, I’ve written 10 chapters and I’m just a bit past this point in the outline. And here we are, only two weeks and 30,000 words into NaNoWriMo! Next week, “Why did I ever commit to this piece of garbage?”

This is number thirty-five in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

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HOW WELL DO I KNOW my characters? The answer to that question is inevitably “Not well enough!” I'm always learning something new. Back in 2006, I wrote Nathan Everett’s For Blood or Money during November’s NaNoWriMo. I set up some extra criteria for my challenge that year.

1. The action in the story would take place on the thirty days of November.
2. It would be a first person noir cyber mystery.
3. The two principal characters would be computer forensics detective Dag Hamar and his assistant Deb Riley.
4. In December, I would continue the story with what happened next from Deb’s perspective on the thirty-one days of December.

I felt I got Dag’s voice down pretty well by writing two short stories that would occur a while before the events of For Blood or Money. But continuing the story from the perspective of Deb Riley, a 27-year-old female, was going to be a challenge.

So, I began a blog, specifically stating that a 58-year-old man was writing this blog, not a young woman, and that I was trying to develop the voice of the character for an upcoming novel. I asked members of the blog site (Live Journal) to please respond to what I wrote and make suggestions regarding what I should change.

Surprisingly, I got a number of young women who decided to ‘help me out.’ They started responding to “Deb” as if she was a real person, making suggestions to her. I continued writing through November, not only writing Dag’s narrative, but in a separate blog writing the story from his assistant’s perspective through the entire month.

When I was ready to start writing Municipal Blondes on December 1, the words flowed naturally in the blog I’d created for her. In fact, I had done so well at capturing the young woman’s voice that in late December, when I took a little break for the holiday, one of the young women who had become a fan wrote:

Deb! We haven’t heard from you since you got in the car with that Ray, fellow. Please let us know you’re okay! I’m worried about you.

That was when I knew I’d not only captured the voice, but the character had captured friends. Municipal Blondes is now available on Bookapy.

So, now I have a whole new cast of characters to deal with. I don’t have time to create a long journal for each of them. So, the best I can do is write about each character and get some of their history in place.

1. Preston Jerico Carver. Age, 32. Brilliant creative genius behind JeriCorp Architecture and Development. A gawky 6’2”. Brown hair, brown eyes. Stutters when he speaks and freezes up in public. Demanding and defensive in his office where he seems able to speak freely. Lonely and a bit angry about it.

Preston has repeatedly refused to ‘move back home’ with Jacqueline, his mother, in the mansion. Still, he visits every Sunday and listens to her berate him for being single. She suggests he move back home and he refuses to ‘be the 30-year-old bachelor living with his mother.’ She suggests again that he get married. Preston likes the idea of getting married, but believes women who would want him are only interested in his money.

2. Erin Jerico Scott Silvers. Age, 29. Smart and creative, almost doomed to a dull life as a housewife and mother until her husband cheats on her and she divorces him, swearing to put her life back together. Shapely 5’8”, a little thin after the divorce and living off her tips. Blue eyes and blonde hair. Quick to comprehend what is going on in the office, but still is almost trapped by it. Starting as a waitress, she is then employed by JeriCorp to be Preston’s secretary.

Erin thought she would become a marketing executive after college, and was working her way up in a large ad agency. But she met Bruce and fell in love, deciding a family would be more her style and that she could go to work when the children were in school. She is normally bright and outgoing, which makes her a natural waitress.

When Erin and Preston meet in the diner, she is still Erin Silvers. After her divorce, she returns to her maiden name of Scott. When she goes to work for Preston, she is simply Miss Scott and her first name is never referred to.

3. Royce Duval. Handsome and charismatic president of JeriCorp. Age, 45. 6’0”, dark blonde. Mustache. He worked for JeriCorp long before Preston took over as Chairman. In fact, he was discovered and groomed for the position by Preston’s grandfather, the previous chairman. Grandfather realized Preston would need someone out front who was a dynamic leader.

4. Shannon Duval. 30-year-old trophy wife of Royce. Managed to entrap him when she was only 25 and neither has been particularly loyal to the other. She is blonde, blue-eyed, big busted. 5’3” tall. She is employed by JeriCorp as a financial manager. In that position she can see much of the company and often stops to talk to people in all departments. She is an opportunist and applies financial leveraging theory to her personal relationships.

5. Jacqueline Jerico Carver. Preston’s mother. She lives in House Jerico and is divorced from Lyle Carver who was substantially below her social status. He got a nice separation package due to the pre-nup and gladly left Jerico City after the divorce. He’s not been heard from since. Jacqueline is 51 years old, brunette, and brown eyes. She is active in all manner of civic organizations, including sitting on the boards for several arts organizations.

6. Lawrence Jerico. Preston’s grandfather and mentor. Also, his father figure. He led the company for thirty years before turning the reins over to Preston, but is still active behind the scenes. 75 years old, gray hair, brown eyes, firm and fit. He has been important in Preston’s life, and owns the controlling interest in JeriCorp Architecture and Development. Has quietly been buying up the property for Preston’s resort development.

7. Bruce Silvers. Ex-husband of Erin. An architectural engineer who was hired into a good position on a fast track at JeriCorp. 29 years old, 5’10”, sandy hair and blue eyes. Simply never learned to keep it zipped and fell right into Shannon’s schemes. That cost him his job and his marriage. He abandoned all rights and left town.

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Sometimes I have resorted to a spreadsheet listing all my characters and their traits, but I often write stories with a hundred or more characters. By comparison, this one will be focused on just these seven characters. I felt the paragraph or two describing each would be adequate as I started writing. Next week, I’ll discuss “The Deep Outline.”

Enjoy!
author Devon Layne, aka Nathan Everett

This is number thirty-four in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

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BEFORE I COULD START creating an outline for my NaNoWriMo project, I felt I really needed a title for my new work in progress. What goes into creating a title for a work?

First of all, I needed to examine the theme and pitch for the book and see what I thought would work. In my case, I also had the bookends to consider. There would be an opening scene and a closing scene that set the stage for the story but weren’t actually a part of it.

Since this would be a work of ‘literary fiction,’ I decided that I liked titles that followed the format of “____ of the ____”. Here are some examples:

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling

So, what was my subject and what was it ‘of?’

In keeping with the idea of a bookend for the story that would paint the time and set the scene, I decided on a unique staircase in a wealthy family’s mansion that would be the silent witness of much of the intrigue in the family. Yes, a staircase. I started playing with what that would look like.

Staircase of the Vanities
Staircase of the Bonnevilles
Staircase of the Massengills
Staircase of the Treadwills
Staircase of the Pembertons
Staircase of the Bellinghams

I was trying to make it the staircase of a family, so I had to pick a name for the ancestral home and family. I decided they would be the Jerico family. (A surname that has about 220 people in the US.) But the more I thought about it, the more I decided it needed something to modify the family name. I thought about what would make this staircase unique and decided it would be carved in the shape of a dragon.

The Staircase of Dragon Jerico

This is a working title. I’ve often changed the title of a book after I started writing it or even after it was finished.

For example, back in 2009, I wanted to write a story that revolved around finding and preserving a legendary ‘other book’ (other than the Gutenberg Bible) printed by Johannes Gutenberg. I’d studied the subject for twenty years collecting information. As a print historian, I could think of nothing better than the title Gutenberg’s Other Book. But that sounded more like a history book, than an intellectual thriller. Following the pattern of Dan Brown thrillers, like The DaVinci Code, I chose to retitle the book The Gutenberg Rubric. In it, people would also discover what a rubric was in Gutenberg’s day and age. It became one of my most successful selling books and continues to sell today. (Available on Bookapy.)

This has happened to me many times. My first published novel was originally called Security and Exchange, when it was offered as part of an anthology to raise charitable contributions for Microsoft’s Giving Campaign. People thought it was a book about computer security and email. The cyber mystery did much better when it was released as For Blood or Money!

Just understand that my having chosen the working title of The Staircase of Dragon Jerico does not mean that is what the book will be released as! It is the working title.

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My preference in a story like this is to create chapter titles with a single line to indicate the principal action as my first outline.

Chapter 1: Who Was the Artist? The story of the staircase in the Jerico household, and who slept with the lady of the house.
Chapter 2: An Unhappy Marriage. Happily-ever-after falls apart for Erin and Bruce Silver when Bruce has an affair.
Chapter 3: The Other Woman. Shannon Duval regrets destroying Bruce’s marriage, even though her own husband, the president of the company, is stepping out on her.
Chapter 4: Survival of the Fittest. Erin determines to put her life together even if it means taking the lowliest jobs to get her through.
Chapter 5: Creative Genius. Preston Carver, Chairman of JeriCorp, has another great idea for his company, but Royce Duval, the CEO, will get the credit, of course.
Chapter 6: A Step Up. Banking on her education, Erin takes a job as Assistant to the Chairman and is told that if she can last six months in the difficult position, she’ll be moved to a less stressful position in the company.
Chapter 7: Object of Desire. Royce sees the Chairman’s assistant and decides she would be better as his mistress.
Chapter 8: Subterfuge. Erin recognizes her new boss as her favorite customer from the diner, but he doesn’t recognize her.
Chapter 9: Out of the Zone. Preston is forced to make a public announcement and freezes up on stage, until Erin rescues him.
Chapter 10: Conflict of Interest. Shannon believes Erin is out for revenge on her by seducing her husband, Royce.
Chapter 11: Proxy Fight. The board attempts to oust Preston as Chairman and discovers he controls the majority of shares.
Chapter 12: Rescue Me. Preston runs after Erin to stop her from leaving the company and town, professing his love, and proposing marriage.
Chapter 13: A Family United. The bookend chapter reveals that just as Preston is descended from Isolde and Joseph Carver, Erin is descended from Isolde and Drake Jerico, but, of course, no one knows that.

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In this outline, I’ve hit the major clutch points of the novel and have named the principal characters. The next step is to fill in the blanks in the outline by going a level deeper with what the action points will be in each chapter. If this progresses as outlines typically do, by the time I’m ready to start writing, there will be more than the thirteen chapters above, and some may have changed significantly. Over the next two weeks, as I begin writing the story, I’ll also release my character sketches and world building documents.

In three days, my Sausage Grinder tier patrons will get the chance to watch this story take shape on a daily basis in November. Whatever I get written that day will be posted in its rough form, exclusively for Sausage Grinder Patrons.

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There are many more considerations yet as the story takes shape. I’ll continue writing about the development process through to the end of the draft. Next week: “Who are these people in my head?”

This is number thirty-three in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

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I’M SITTING HERE with a dozen story ideas that I have written a logline for. I’ve written a pitch for each logline. Some are pretty good. How do I go about deciding what to pursue?

With great difficulty. I mentioned a few weeks ago that for me, writer’s block is often the result of too many ideas trying to worm their way out of my head at the same time. Which will get my attention?

First, I read through all the loglines again, including the ones that I generated long after the blog post on loglines was first drafted back in September. Some of those loglines just leave me cold. For example:

Girl escapes from father’s incestuous intentions, taking a few precious items, and finding work in a neighboring city as a housekeeper, until the owner of the house falls in love.

I wrote that logline based on the German fairy tale “Allerleiruah” or “All-Kinds-Of-Furs.” I just didn’t like the implications of the first part of the story. In some versions, the father actually rapes his daughter. The only interesting part of it was how she found her future husband by being disguised and appearing at dances he gave, then disappearing again as a scullery maid. So, I separated that part out as a concept that I’d keep, but discarded the rest of the pitch.

Then there was this one:

Youngest son stumbles through a quest, succeeding where his older and smarter brothers failed, arousing jealousy and treachery as they attempt to take what he has won.

I didn’t want to deal with magic in this year’s story. I have no problem with magic as I’ve used it in other stories, like Nathan Everett’s Steven George & The Dragon, available on Bookapy. It’s also a magic quest fairy tale. I’ll probably do a magic story again, but this one just sounded trite. It was based on the fairy tale, “The Golden Bird.” I did like the surprise revelation of who the fox was and filed that idea away.

Young woman is caught in a lust-inflamed dream, not realizing her dream-lover is the flesh-and-blood enemy her family has sworn to kill.

I threw out the entire concept of this creeper story which is based on John Keats’ narrative poem, “The Eve of St. Agnes.” But there was a technique he used that I really liked. The entire first five stanzas were about an ‘ancient Beadsman’ praying for sinners as he apparently dies on an ash heap. The sole purpose of this prologue seems to be to set the background scene for what is to occur. And in the last stanza of the poem, we find him finally sleeping or dead on his bed of ashes having prayed for a thousand sinners. I filed that technique away and decided I’d like to include a bookend for this year’s NaNovel. Here’s another I found appealing:

Man interprets a woman’s romantic attention as a thinly-veiled attempt to gain control of his business, but his attempts to rebuff her constantly lead them closer to each other.

I liked this twist on the billionaire next door theme and decided to keep the concept of a romance made difficult because of the difference in economic class of the two people—possibly even employment. I felt I needed a real reason for them to be thrown together, though, and developed a further construct. She, not knowing he is all that rich, falls for the guy at table three in the little diner and constantly gives him little touches, extras on his plate, and her best smile. It never occurs to her that anyone who was really rich would eat at the hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

Socially awkward genius inventor hides behind his CEO’s charisma to manage company, all the while being ridiculed for his stupidity and incompetence.

I liked this general theme and set up, but it needs something besides their public personae to make it work. Can’t just be the charismatic vs. the socially awkward unless there is some kind of critical point at which the socially awkward one has to rise above his phobia in order to win both the business and the girl.

So—drumroll, please—here’s what I’ve arrived at for NaNoWriMo 2023.

Woman stranded in a new town after a short and bitter divorce waits tables in a diner where she meets the man of her dreams; but he is a socially inept recluse constantly on guard against gold diggers. When the two are thrown together, mistrust and misunderstanding nearly destroy any chance of a relationship.

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Pitch

When Erin’s divorce was finalized, she had little hope and no prospects. The sole bright spot in her week was the poor fellow who came into the diner on Thursdays and became her regular customer. She had no idea who he was, but of all her customers, he was the one who treated her kindly. She’d never really seen his face, because he kept a hoodie sweatshirt pulled over his eyes and only removed his mask while his head was down and he was eating.

Preston only got out of his penthouse office/apartment once a week. His hoodie and facemask kept him from being recognized as the billionaire creative genius behind JeriCorp Architects. He found Erin’s simple attention to be refreshing, and it enabled him to overcome his shyness and anxiety so that they actually shared a few sentences of conversation when he came in. Of course, she was too pretty to be interested in him as more than a customer. And if she knew who he really was, it would skew the relationship out of whack.

When Erin says she is going to apply for a better job, Preston encourages her, wishing her well. Neither has any idea that the job she will get will throw the two of them together as she becomes his personal assistant. But the mask mandate and change of venue keeps either one from recognizing the other.

Preston is forced into a situation where he must make a public presentation—something he has always avoided by having a president who was handsome and charismatic and was the public face of JeriCorp. When Preston predictably freezes during the presentation, Erin steps in to complete it and sell the project. The cost, however, is recognition of one another. Preston is convinced she was stalking him, especially when his president’s wife accuses her of having an affair with her husband.

Erin quits and leaves his office, but Preston’s mother berates him for losing such a wonderful woman who was obviously in love with him.

Will Preston be in time to stop Erin from leaving town? And if he is in time, is there any hope the two will find their way back together?

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Not perfect yet? Well, that’s what November is for!

Of course, now I’m excited to start writing right away, but there are still steps and it’s not November yet. Since this is all about planning the novel, next week I’ll talk about “Creating an Outline.”