My brain is rebelling. Although I can’t really blame it on the writing. It’s rebelling against being stuck in Doing Taxes Land (for my American readers, the Canadian deadline for filing is April 30th). Yesterday, I finally conceded defeat on this year’s taxes for My Liege and myself and trundled all down to the accountant. Usually, I find doing the taxes pretty straightforward. However, this year there were some elements that made it just difficult enough that my brain hurts even talking about it. I had a year-end to take to the accountant, anyway, so this way he gets double the fun!
Now that I have that excuse out of the way, I’m still in the midst of swapping Penny’s brain for Cindy’s. I find it always takes me a couple of writing days to make the switch. I had a great day Friday brainstorming Cindy’s (well, my) romantic comedy short story series. I plan to write 5 stories in the series, and one is already complete. Four female secondary characters are introduced in the first story. So, Friday, I sat down with my netbook and brainstormed bare bones ideas for the four secondaries while reading the first story. I’m pretty sure I now know all the stories’ heroes, except for one. I’m sure he’ll come to me. Better yet, I know which H/h gets Story #2. And I think I know when it starts.
Today I’ll start brainstorming Claire and Ridge’s story. Yes, that’s really the hero’s name. How embarrasing, the poor guy. But that was the name I saddled him with in Story #1, because he appeared as a male stripper at a bachelorette party in Story #1 and Ridge seemed like a good, solid (no pun intended) stripper name. However, now that I’m turning the first story into a series, I’ve realized Ridge is not only my hero’s stripper name—it’s his real name. For reasons I won’t go into, because I haven’t yet decided which of two reasons it is. Just know it’s his mother’s fault.
Keeping the Ridge name and not just making it a stripper name seems like a great way to torture my poor hero. And this is a cindypk story—I do love to torture my romantic comedy heroes!
Other elements of the story and characters have come to light. But I need to hunker down for more serious brainstorming, this time devoted to Claire and Ridge instead of the series as a whole. Penny’s still waiting for legalities of sorta news announced last week, so of course I keep sliding into Penny brain.
By the end of this week, I should be firmly entrenched as Cindy again and will have begun drafting Claire and Ridge’s short story. Like usual, I probably won’t know exactly what’s going to happen when I start the writing. I find it’s more fun (and more natural to my creative process) to find out just enough about the characters and the opening situation to get me started. And then I head off. Into the mist. Or the fog. Or the granite-hard mountain with only my trusty, rusty spoon to dig my way out.
Wish me luck!
