happy new year!

Written on Thursday, January 01, 2009 by haleigh

I love New Year's. It's a clean, fresh start. I feel like I have a fresh start writing too. My first MS behind me, and I'm ready to start again, with everything I've learned. Hopefully I won't make all the same mistakes this time around (like ending up with so many plot holes I have to rewrite 60% of the darn thing).

So in the vein of fresh starts, I have been researching, researching, researching. To admit to my geekiness, I love this stage. I love scrounging for little known facts and being able to throw out at a party, "You know, the per barrel cost of Brazilian deep-sea oil from the Tupi field is $33."

So in my plotting, I got all excited yesterday about an idea - campaign financing! The plot all comes back to scandalous campaign donations. So I googled "campaign finance" and in about five minutes, I realized this is not, in fact, the direction I want to go. Yikes! Could I have picked a more convoluted subject?

So, I'm still trying to figure out what the big final conspiracy is. I'd like to get the suspense side of the book plotted before I start writing. The relationships/emotional side I try to just let happen. But it's much easier to write when you know who the bad guy is and what they want!

But for this particular story, I have one topic to research which is turning out to be really fun. My heroine is a pilot. I'm pretty sure this says a lot about her -- her attention to detail, her independence, her love for routine.

But the cool part - she crashes her plane (on purpose). So I have to figure out how exactly one goes about crashing a plane and surviving it. So my first thought: taking flying lessons! Uh, a bit out of my price range. Second idea: flight simulator!

So with my little flight simulator computer game, I am learning to fly -- and crash -- a plane. I've so far learned to take off, make turns, and climb and descend. Next, I need to figure out how to land the sucker. Then, I'll crash it :)

So my goals for the new year are, in no particular order:
-- learn how to crash a plane
-- write another MS
-- query for an agent

And today starts Marn and I's mini-nano! I'm at 3,211 right now, and my goal is 28,211 by January 31st. Anybody else in?