Pounding Out Pages

New novel, working title "Where Power Lies," is now into Chapter 3 and a crucial meeting of my POV character and the hero/love interest. It's very interesting doing this rewrite because it's like having an outline from the old manuscript and yet not knowing with total assurance where the story is going. Well, I know where it's going, but how it gets there has changed from its previous incarnations.

Usually around Chapter 7, I hit a sticking point, which I believe I've commented on in earlier posts. Lots of things can happen at such a point--revamping earlier chapters, rethinking plot and subplot. Once I reach that point, it may be time to get back to proofing/editing "Stranger Faces." I also have a fair amount of vacation and holiday time away from my day job in the next two months, and while there's a lot of other things on my to-do list, I think I'll be able to press onward.

NOTE: In my post announcing I was starting work on "Power," I erroneously referred to it as my sixth novel. "Stranger Faces" is actually number six, and I have updated said earlier post to correct this. I have now assuaged my anal-retentive tendencies.

On a side note, I started reading (gasp!) a novel. I met the author, Joel Quam, at a book fair during the summer where we shared a table to meet, greet, and sell books. As we were packing up to leave, he offered to exchange "a mystery for a mystery." All these months later, I started reading his "...Or Perish" as noted on Goodreads, where I will provide a review when I'm done. Having been immersed solely in writing my own novels, it's interesting to read something by someone else who has a different style. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I might disagree with the style in some aspects, i.e., I would not have written something the same way, but the story has pulled me in by creating a host of interesting characters, an intriguing premise, and a totally believable small-college-town setting. I've already been tempted to turn to the back and find out if two particular characters get together at the end of the story, proving that I care about these fictional people. That is perhaps the first and greatest hurdle of writing fiction: readers have to care about someone in the story.