Move 'em Out, Head 'em Up

My apologies -- I have had a terrible time getting back to update this Blog.  Since I'm starting to spend some regular time on GoodReads, I'm going to give blogging there a try.  One less website to remember to visit, you know?

Thank you to everyone who checked this out! 

Anne of Green Gables, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Me

Let's hear it for strong plotters! As writers, we rightly study scene and sequel, black moments, and 3-act structure. So why have I wanted to do something different? And, a toss-out to you other writers: Am I alone? 


I've self-published my latest book, OverTime. I can write a "publishable" book--unless the 20 I've published traditionally (and my RITA) represent a looong string of flukes!  But I wanted something not better (the talent of other writers awes me) but... different.  


That longing festered in me, until I could write nothing at all. For years, I tried this, tried that, gave up. Writing to genre, even genres I love, suffocated me.  


Does this sound familiar to anyone else? 


Now I'm back. I don't just mean with a "published" book. I mean: I wake and go straight to my computer. I imagine scenes as I drive. I hand-write snippets in waiting rooms. 


I can breathe again, through my fingertips. But to what end? 


OverTime 01 - Searching, resists labels. It presents a plot question on the first page (our narrator regains consciousness on horseback, with no memory of who she is and how she got there). It resolves this question by the last chapter. But its romance has barely started, and more questions appear to be answered in Book 02 (or later!)


The part of me that's studied genre plotting since the 80s is asking, WTF? How dare I linger in the story's world, instead of honing? 


Well I blame Anne of Green Gables. We read those books (by Lucy Maud Montgomery) to visit with Anne and her friends, not to solve mysteries or defeat bad guys. And I blame Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose classic Little House books are hardly plot heavy. I blame the pioneer journals I devoured, researching for my own heroine as she slowly realizes what the reader, with inside information, should know within two pages (yay, dramatic irony!) 


So is this kind of book too dated? Or are all those YA novels, whose romantic development builds across book after book, creating a new audience for love stories that take their own time? 

What do you think?