I’m so glad I have plot points, because somewhere in a novel I’m writing, I can’t remember what I’ve said and what I haven’t.  I lose my sense of direction, and ideas don’t bubble and flow like they did in the beginning.  I just reached 30,000 words of the 72,000 I’m hoping to write.  And the words are getting harder to find.  Everything’s slowing down.  Becoming work.  And I know some of you are rolling your eyes because you write volumes of words and then have to cut.  But not me.  I write lean and then have to go back to add descriptions and emotions.  All the extras.

The middle.  Ugh.  It’s a juggling act, keeping all of the story points in the air.  Even the best juggler, though, eventually times the balls wrong or gets tired, and the balls crash down.  That’s what the middle feels like to me.  So far, I’ve accomplished what I wanted to.

1.  Jazzi’s sister, Olivia, finds the new girl she hired for her beauty shop dead in the chair that’s tipped back at the wash basin.
2.  Jazzi’s ex-fiancée comes to her for advice, worried that his new wife is going to leave him.  And then she disappears.  And then the cops find her empty car near a field in the country with her purse on the front seat.  If she met someone to run away, why leave her purse?  Unless….
3.  I’ve started introducing suspects, witnesses, and clues.  There are plenty to choose from for Misty.  Not many people liked her.  It’s slim pickings for Chad’s wife.  Everyone liked her.  And of course, he’s the main suspect.
4.  At the same time Jazzi’s trying to piece together clues, she, Ansel, and Jerod are working on a Colonial house to flip.  Its rooms are huge, and they’ve decided to make this house a little more modern than what they usually do.
5.  They’re trying to finish the flipper and help Ansel’s brother, Radley, and his fiancée Elspeth move into the house they bought on Wilt Street before Easter.  Easter’s a big event–a big family celebration.

I like the mix.  I just don’t like middles:)  But the only way out of them is to trudge forward.  So that’s what I’m doing.  Trudging, one word, one chapter at a time.  And I have a lot more to go.  And eventually, clues will add up, the pace will kick into gear again, and the words will flow faster.  Until then, no one said that writing was always fun.  Fulfilling, but that’s a different matter.  Sometimes it’s just a win when you get the words down.

Whatever you’re working on, good luck.  And Happy writing!