Tell us a little about your current work in progress.
28 thoughts on “Reader Friday: Your WIP”
Because of NaNoWriMo, I have dove into my work in progress that had been moving slowly over the summer. Three days in and I’ve written 10,000 words.
I’m really excited to get it finished and finally get it out there.
The second book in my current series is about elder fraud. It’s been through beta reads and is almost ready to submit.
The third book deals with teen suicide. At about 180 pages into it, the plot is twisting like a nervous trout in my hands. I need to kill the bad guy and implicate one of the main characters. But something feels off about the timing/pacing so I’m moving backward, looking for an earlier opportunity for the murder.
BTW, Kindle Scout is offering editorial feedback for books submitted to Scout that are shortlisted during November and December. Check out sponsor offers on Nanowrimo’s website.
I’ve just started my fourth cold case book set in Memphis. It deals with the emotional aftereffects of human trafficking, along with an unsolved murder.
I can’t tell you because I don’t even know. I’m kind’ve in a low maintenance pattern in my fiction. I’m not working on the project I want to because I don’t have the time I need right now to invest in its planning (that’s scheduled for December).
So I’m doing a teenie bit of writing on a story every day but it is a seat of the pants experiment. I’m just writing to see what happens day by day.
I actually have three.
The first is the second in my Lisa Trent series–normal, ultra-cute, everyday four-feet-eleven inactive Marine military police officer who gets caught up into paranormal experiences. This time, she is dealing with the scary phenomenon of people who disappear in forests, on national hiking trails, and even downtown. The research is really frightening–so much so that I have asked my sons and older grandchildren not to take their children into various spots in our state–spots where people disappear without explanation. Many are never found.
I’m also starting research and character sketches on a WWII novel. Trent–no relation to Lisa Trent–is an Office of Naval Intelligence operative whose main skills are kidnapping and evading. Turn those around, and they become the ability to find and rescue. And he must rescue Carol, Wendy Nagata’s twin sister, whom he left behind when he yanked Wendy off a South Pacific island where she had gone after graduation from USC to teach for two years in a boarding school for the children of missionaries scattered across the waters. And now, he must do so without any hands.
And finally, what would happen if a Chinese-American young woman had been recruited by a secret U.S. agency because of her knowledge of poisons, and her ability to kill people with them? Never mind that her parents are Southern Baptist missionaries. And she has been assigned to a mission to kill the president of an eastern European nation that, at the UN, has threatened to take down the United States. Is it possible that he’s the upcoming Antichrist? He certainly hits the right spots in the Bible’s descriptions of the End-of-the-World tyrant. And if she is successful of killing the ole boy, will the agency who assigns her mission try to eliminate her for the purpose of plausible deniability?
Lastly, I won’t be participating in national novel writing month. My experience has shown that my non-participation is better for the peace of the nation–or at least our senior living apartment house.
Love your concepts for your WIPs! All three of them sound super interesting!
Thank you.
I agree, great concepts!
Thank you.
Working on the fourth book in my paranormal thriller series. This one involves medical serial killers, prolific hitmen, and a five-year-old girl with the divine gift of healing.
Fun!!
It’s about an intelligent, tenacious kid who only wants normalcy but who has been chosen by an ancient evil to be the next Keeper. My goal is to have the first draft done 4/30/18.
I’m working on Book 3 of my Grafton County Series. Basic logline: Grisly, small-town murders mirror a crime writer’s devastation.
Got my critique of “Broken Cocoon” back from Killer Nashville’s Claymore Contest. I submitted “Broken Cocoon” as a ‘novella in seven stories’ (and idea I picked up from _On the Road with Del and Louise_). Based on the critique, I’ve cut back to just three stories and and rewritten the novella to integrate the stories more:
“Marieke has built a “safe and secure” life–her friends call it her cocoon. Just avoid the corporate world, organized religion and entangling alliances with men. A series of crimes invade her cocoon. She has to decide whether to double down on her cocoon or confront and help solve the crimes. Will she be able to choose a risky but fulfilling path?”
A second WIP is a novel with the working title “Lisa Schwarz: Orphan and Widow.”
“Can Lisa find the father she never knew? Did he murder her mother?
“Lisa Schwarz, an orphan who married at eighteen, lives with her husband and their baby in a small, run-down house, scraping by on what’s left over after Luther’s drinking. She’s shocked and angered when Deputy Sheriff “Bart” Bartkowski arrests her for Luther’s murder, though he later tries to apologize.
New information about her family comes to light and she starts a search for her father. Bart further alienates Lisa when he makes the missing father a suspect in her mother’s unsolved murder.”
The “Lisa” novel will include the short story “Feuds” that won a contest at The Weekly Knob.
“The Wetsuit Solution,” featuring Marieke’s West Coast friend and police detective Kat Van Duinen, received an Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest Short Story Contest.
Mine sees an unlicensed private investigator “doing a favor” for the local mob to save his gambling addict of a brother from being thrown off a roof. The favor involves driving a Chinese wizard from Los Angeles to Cleveland. The Chinese wizard is, by the way, dead.
Family – sometimes you just wish your parents had abandoned you at birth, or at least your siblings.
Love it!
I’m working on my 10th book, the eighth in the Jill Quint, MD. It’s set in NOLA in the present day. I’ve killed an agriculture supervisor with a common spice that can be used as a poison and I’m weaving in Dicamba (weed killer), marijuana cultivation, and politics. I’ve written 19,000 words.
I started with the guy dying and wrote 10,000 words, then I went back and added four chapters in front of the original start.
Can you tell I’m a pantser?
YES.
The thought of just writing used to cause me to hyperventilate.
Usually, I outline and research, and then do it again, before I start. However, my Millridge series started with a friend who lives a ‘different’ lifestyle complained that’s all books seem to focus on and not the fact she also lives a day-to-day life. So I sat down and just started a story with a day-to-day life, and then of course two murders, some blackmail, a little identity theft … I can’t help it, I’m a mystery writer.
I’m finishing up a novella in my Mapleton Mystery series, at the point where I’m waiting for some beta reader feedback, running it through SmartEdit to find out what new crutch words and phrases have appeared, and dealing with the dreaded blurb. It’s a departure from the series because it’s written from the POV the series protagonist’s girlfriend. She’s not a cop, which is pushing the story into cozy territory, which is not my normal genre.
Then, it’s on to the next Blackthorne, Inc. book to pick up a thread that was introduced in the last book. All I need is the protagonist’s GMC and a plot idea.
I am Nano-ing and since I use my Nano time as “things I haven’t tried before” time, I am experimenting.
I have a character, a doctor, who started out as a character in a 2-person play (her jailer is the other person) for a 1-act play festival. I was cast in a bigger show so never finished it, but those two characters kept nagging me so I decided to do a book about them. That turned into a trilogy with 2 sets of other characters (2 politicians in Part 2, 2 brothers in part 3). That never felt right, though I loved all the characters.
On the first day of Nano, I realized what I actually have is a great big story that will probably end up in 3 parts, but everything is actually happening to all of them throughout.
I’m sure that makes no sense right now, but I can see it on that movie screen in my head.
Finishing a short story called “In Memory of Abigail Taylor”. It begins like a police procedural but warps into a horror story. Not splatter horror but the more literary variety. It asks the question, who am I?
Starting a novella called “SnowFall” set in the Yukon Territory. A FBI agent is searching for a killer hiding somewhere in the wild of the north. A snowmobile accident kills her partner and she is rescued by a mysterious man who may not be all human. The MC finds that she isn’t just trying to be a great agent, she is one.
Like Jim Porter, above, I work on different things at the same time.
The second book in my Rachel Shorte, J.D. mysteries, IN DEFENCE OF ANOTHER. For this series I try to answer a legal question (okay, no one is asking it but me) in this case, How far is too far undercover and who makes that decision?
I am working on a twisted romance in which the husband runs an international private security agency in the light of day and in the shadows facilitates arms deals and runs squads of mercenaries. His wife is a part-time culinary student oblivious to his darker side. At least that’s what he thinks. She’s really a CIA operative. The lies start to unravel when a woman is abducted while driving the wife’s car. No doubt it was a case of mistaken identity, but who wanted to abduct the CIA agent – someone from her past, someone from his past or someone he hired who seriously messed up (that’s what her CIA handler thinks)?
Yes, both those stories are about working undercover, but they are completely different – even the research didn’t overlap.
The third story is about a woman and her husband and his two siblings that live with them. Or is it about a Dominatrix and three submissives? Or is it about a junior partner (the husband) at an architecture firm where a project he is overseeing has over a million dollars missing, a senior partner’s supposed heart attack is ruled homicide and the dead woman found across town‘s best friend says she was threatening her married boyfriend (the husband) and everyone is wondering if he is as innocent as he claims why did the dead partner leave his wife a huge house on the water in Hilton Head, NC? I love writing this story. It is written from 4 POVs and there are so many relationship arcs to deal with. In fact, I love it so much it has become a 3 book series.
Just began the 12th entry in my Jonathan Grave series. No title yet, but this one will bring justice to the bad guys who kill two members of Jonathan’s team.
I ‘m finishing finishing the last book in the ICE HAMMER trilogy, INVINCIBLE.
As I write that I’m outlining another Brother’s Four adventure for my Leprechauns, then jumping into an historical fiction thriller that’s been simmering for a few years about a red-headed Irish farmer who ends up in Ghengis Khan’s army in the 1240’s.
Hi this is Gerald the Troll. I too am working on a book. It is a wonderful tale of love amongst Trolls, in the midst of the Great London Sewer Scuffle of 1896. It is full of romance, tragedy, joyful odours, and some rats.
Tell us a little about your current work in progress.
Because of NaNoWriMo, I have dove into my work in progress that had been moving slowly over the summer. Three days in and I’ve written 10,000 words.
I’m really excited to get it finished and finally get it out there.
The second book in my current series is about elder fraud. It’s been through beta reads and is almost ready to submit.
The third book deals with teen suicide. At about 180 pages into it, the plot is twisting like a nervous trout in my hands. I need to kill the bad guy and implicate one of the main characters. But something feels off about the timing/pacing so I’m moving backward, looking for an earlier opportunity for the murder.
BTW, Kindle Scout is offering editorial feedback for books submitted to Scout that are shortlisted during November and December. Check out sponsor offers on Nanowrimo’s website.
I’ve just started my fourth cold case book set in Memphis. It deals with the emotional aftereffects of human trafficking, along with an unsolved murder.
I can’t tell you because I don’t even know. I’m kind’ve in a low maintenance pattern in my fiction. I’m not working on the project I want to because I don’t have the time I need right now to invest in its planning (that’s scheduled for December).
So I’m doing a teenie bit of writing on a story every day but it is a seat of the pants experiment. I’m just writing to see what happens day by day.
I actually have three.
The first is the second in my Lisa Trent series–normal, ultra-cute, everyday four-feet-eleven inactive Marine military police officer who gets caught up into paranormal experiences. This time, she is dealing with the scary phenomenon of people who disappear in forests, on national hiking trails, and even downtown. The research is really frightening–so much so that I have asked my sons and older grandchildren not to take their children into various spots in our state–spots where people disappear without explanation. Many are never found.
I’m also starting research and character sketches on a WWII novel. Trent–no relation to Lisa Trent–is an Office of Naval Intelligence operative whose main skills are kidnapping and evading. Turn those around, and they become the ability to find and rescue. And he must rescue Carol, Wendy Nagata’s twin sister, whom he left behind when he yanked Wendy off a South Pacific island where she had gone after graduation from USC to teach for two years in a boarding school for the children of missionaries scattered across the waters. And now, he must do so without any hands.
And finally, what would happen if a Chinese-American young woman had been recruited by a secret U.S. agency because of her knowledge of poisons, and her ability to kill people with them? Never mind that her parents are Southern Baptist missionaries. And she has been assigned to a mission to kill the president of an eastern European nation that, at the UN, has threatened to take down the United States. Is it possible that he’s the upcoming Antichrist? He certainly hits the right spots in the Bible’s descriptions of the End-of-the-World tyrant. And if she is successful of killing the ole boy, will the agency who assigns her mission try to eliminate her for the purpose of plausible deniability?
Lastly, I won’t be participating in national novel writing month. My experience has shown that my non-participation is better for the peace of the nation–or at least our senior living apartment house.
Love your concepts for your WIPs! All three of them sound super interesting!
Thank you.
I agree, great concepts!
Thank you.
Working on the fourth book in my paranormal thriller series. This one involves medical serial killers, prolific hitmen, and a five-year-old girl with the divine gift of healing.
Fun!!
It’s about an intelligent, tenacious kid who only wants normalcy but who has been chosen by an ancient evil to be the next Keeper. My goal is to have the first draft done 4/30/18.
I’m working on Book 3 of my Grafton County Series. Basic logline: Grisly, small-town murders mirror a crime writer’s devastation.
Got my critique of “Broken Cocoon” back from Killer Nashville’s Claymore Contest. I submitted “Broken Cocoon” as a ‘novella in seven stories’ (and idea I picked up from _On the Road with Del and Louise_). Based on the critique, I’ve cut back to just three stories and and rewritten the novella to integrate the stories more:
“Marieke has built a “safe and secure” life–her friends call it her cocoon. Just avoid the corporate world, organized religion and entangling alliances with men. A series of crimes invade her cocoon. She has to decide whether to double down on her cocoon or confront and help solve the crimes. Will she be able to choose a risky but fulfilling path?”
A second WIP is a novel with the working title “Lisa Schwarz: Orphan and Widow.”
“Can Lisa find the father she never knew? Did he murder her mother?
“Lisa Schwarz, an orphan who married at eighteen, lives with her husband and their baby in a small, run-down house, scraping by on what’s left over after Luther’s drinking. She’s shocked and angered when Deputy Sheriff “Bart” Bartkowski arrests her for Luther’s murder, though he later tries to apologize.
New information about her family comes to light and she starts a search for her father. Bart further alienates Lisa when he makes the missing father a suspect in her mother’s unsolved murder.”
The “Lisa” novel will include the short story “Feuds” that won a contest at The Weekly Knob.
“The Wetsuit Solution,” featuring Marieke’s West Coast friend and police detective Kat Van Duinen, received an Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest Short Story Contest.
Mine sees an unlicensed private investigator “doing a favor” for the local mob to save his gambling addict of a brother from being thrown off a roof. The favor involves driving a Chinese wizard from Los Angeles to Cleveland. The Chinese wizard is, by the way, dead.
Family – sometimes you just wish your parents had abandoned you at birth, or at least your siblings.
Love it!
I’m working on my 10th book, the eighth in the Jill Quint, MD. It’s set in NOLA in the present day. I’ve killed an agriculture supervisor with a common spice that can be used as a poison and I’m weaving in Dicamba (weed killer), marijuana cultivation, and politics. I’ve written 19,000 words.
I started with the guy dying and wrote 10,000 words, then I went back and added four chapters in front of the original start.
Can you tell I’m a pantser?
YES.
The thought of just writing used to cause me to hyperventilate.
Usually, I outline and research, and then do it again, before I start. However, my Millridge series started with a friend who lives a ‘different’ lifestyle complained that’s all books seem to focus on and not the fact she also lives a day-to-day life. So I sat down and just started a story with a day-to-day life, and then of course two murders, some blackmail, a little identity theft … I can’t help it, I’m a mystery writer.
I’m finishing up a novella in my Mapleton Mystery series, at the point where I’m waiting for some beta reader feedback, running it through SmartEdit to find out what new crutch words and phrases have appeared, and dealing with the dreaded blurb. It’s a departure from the series because it’s written from the POV the series protagonist’s girlfriend. She’s not a cop, which is pushing the story into cozy territory, which is not my normal genre.
Then, it’s on to the next Blackthorne, Inc. book to pick up a thread that was introduced in the last book. All I need is the protagonist’s GMC and a plot idea.
I am Nano-ing and since I use my Nano time as “things I haven’t tried before” time, I am experimenting.
I have a character, a doctor, who started out as a character in a 2-person play (her jailer is the other person) for a 1-act play festival. I was cast in a bigger show so never finished it, but those two characters kept nagging me so I decided to do a book about them. That turned into a trilogy with 2 sets of other characters (2 politicians in Part 2, 2 brothers in part 3). That never felt right, though I loved all the characters.
On the first day of Nano, I realized what I actually have is a great big story that will probably end up in 3 parts, but everything is actually happening to all of them throughout.
I’m sure that makes no sense right now, but I can see it on that movie screen in my head.
Finishing a short story called “In Memory of Abigail Taylor”. It begins like a police procedural but warps into a horror story. Not splatter horror but the more literary variety. It asks the question, who am I?
Starting a novella called “SnowFall” set in the Yukon Territory. A FBI agent is searching for a killer hiding somewhere in the wild of the north. A snowmobile accident kills her partner and she is rescued by a mysterious man who may not be all human. The MC finds that she isn’t just trying to be a great agent, she is one.
Like Jim Porter, above, I work on different things at the same time.
The second book in my Rachel Shorte, J.D. mysteries, IN DEFENCE OF ANOTHER. For this series I try to answer a legal question (okay, no one is asking it but me) in this case, How far is too far undercover and who makes that decision?
I am working on a twisted romance in which the husband runs an international private security agency in the light of day and in the shadows facilitates arms deals and runs squads of mercenaries. His wife is a part-time culinary student oblivious to his darker side. At least that’s what he thinks. She’s really a CIA operative. The lies start to unravel when a woman is abducted while driving the wife’s car. No doubt it was a case of mistaken identity, but who wanted to abduct the CIA agent – someone from her past, someone from his past or someone he hired who seriously messed up (that’s what her CIA handler thinks)?
Yes, both those stories are about working undercover, but they are completely different – even the research didn’t overlap.
The third story is about a woman and her husband and his two siblings that live with them. Or is it about a Dominatrix and three submissives? Or is it about a junior partner (the husband) at an architecture firm where a project he is overseeing has over a million dollars missing, a senior partner’s supposed heart attack is ruled homicide and the dead woman found across town‘s best friend says she was threatening her married boyfriend (the husband) and everyone is wondering if he is as innocent as he claims why did the dead partner leave his wife a huge house on the water in Hilton Head, NC? I love writing this story. It is written from 4 POVs and there are so many relationship arcs to deal with. In fact, I love it so much it has become a 3 book series.
Just began the 12th entry in my Jonathan Grave series. No title yet, but this one will bring justice to the bad guys who kill two members of Jonathan’s team.
I ‘m finishing finishing the last book in the ICE HAMMER trilogy, INVINCIBLE.
As I write that I’m outlining another Brother’s Four adventure for my Leprechauns, then jumping into an historical fiction thriller that’s been simmering for a few years about a red-headed Irish farmer who ends up in Ghengis Khan’s army in the 1240’s.
Hi this is Gerald the Troll. I too am working on a book. It is a wonderful tale of love amongst Trolls, in the midst of the Great London Sewer Scuffle of 1896. It is full of romance, tragedy, joyful odours, and some rats.
Sewers and rats are always good.
Gerald, get off my computer.
Sorry Mr Basil