I am happy to report that I reached my target page count for the week. I did 30 pages, more than my usual goal of 25 because I had to make up some time from last week. I hit my target of finishing the first half of the book and I’m now done with the first 200 pages.   

So what happens next? Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Many writers dread the middle because this is where the plot sags and there doesn’t seem to be enough material to write the second half of the book. In contrast, I’ve found that the story always fills itself in, and I don’t have to worry if I’ve laid the proper groundwork. In a mystery, it’s easy. This is where you throw in another dead body.

My concern with this WIP is that I have the hero and heroine separated in upcoming segments. For a romance, that’s less than desirable. I’ll have to figure out a way to have them share more adventures. I may also have to step back, and take some time off from writing, to work out the different plot threads. My characters have to uncover a murderer, find a jamming device, locate the source of illegal arms shipments, deal with political intrigue on their home world, rescue the heroine’s missing landlady from the bad guys, stop an invasion...and I forget what else. All of these are jumbled in my head. Thanks to my synopsis, I already know how some of the quests will be resolved but not all of them. Should I pause to figure it out? Or should I go with the flow and see where the story takes me? Let’s hope it carries me through the next 200 pages with nonstop action, suspense, and sexual tension!

Your H/H have lives about as crammed as mine--but theirs sound so much more exciting :P

Mimi, their lives are a lot more exciting than mine, sitting at a desk all day!

Good work on the page count. I've been so swamped working on publicity for my May 1 release that I'm massively behind.

It irks me that there's this "rule" that h/h have to be together all the time. I think it was a Linda Castillo romantic suspense where they weren't together much until well past the mid-point, although they did hook up from time to time. I took heart from that--that there was hope for my writing of lives that intersected, ran parallel, but not always on the same page.

Of course, the book that's garnering the most acclaim happens to be the one where I tried to fit the mold and keep h/h together as much as possible. But they do have their own lives to live and shouldn't be joined at the hip.

Toni, I know how much of a time sink the promo biz can cause but you do a great job and in a few months, you'll be able to relax. Terry, don't worry. I'll allow my h/h to go off on their own for a while. They each have separate goals at this point. However, they'll think often of each other and long for their mate's touch until they meet up again.