X comes before J which after N but before B

Do I have you completely confused? Because I am.

While I wait for the response to my first query, I have this other story that just won't shut up. No, I'm not going to make it--it makes writing so much easier when your mind continuously conjures the story and you can see it playing in your head like a movie. My problem is that it's giving me different clips at a time.

The first scene I wrote, I was certain was going to be the first chapter. I introduce the protagonist and her love interest. Then another scene continued to pop in my mind. I tried and tried and tried to write that first scene, but this one pushed it out of the way before I could get three pages written. So I gave in. And wrote a whole two pages before ANOTHER "beginning" scene played out in my mind. Writing out of sequence conflicts with the OCD writer in me...but this new story won't let me do it any other way. I know what happens. I know who the bad guys are. I know the trials their relationship will face. I know how it will end and what I want to happen in the sequel. I just don't know what order this blooming thing's going to get written in and if I'm going to know how to arrange it.

I've placed two calls to specialists so I can understand the disability the love interest has and write about it accurately and am waiting to be able to meet up with them. For now, those scenes are like pencil sketches, waiting for the paint from the supplier so it can be colored in.

In the meantime, I have the second book on the one I have out for submission writing itself in my head, too. This one's going chronologically...except for the beginning. There's the general premise, a bright shining light and what comes next is a path of sheer black with the next scene another bright shining light. I'm missing the lightbulbs I need to illuminate that dark part...but I'll find it.

What's your technique for writing? Do you force your story to conform chronologically? Or do you write what your imagination gives you and put it in order later?

Just in time...

Query Hiatus (9/1 to....TBD) | Confessions From Suite 500

This is the absolutely brilliant agent I queried--I have, to be quite honest, coveted her since I met her at the Emerald Coast Writer's Conference last April.

I've, naturally, been counting down the days since I submitted my query and first three chapters (today is 19 days). So, while this really sucks for anyone who can't query until after September 1, she'll be ready to catch up to my query and pages and send me an e-mail saying "I LOVE your pages, send me the whole thing!" (That's how it works in my mine, at least).

So, I sit, as patiently as I'm capable, and wait for her to fall in love with me...

P.S. She told me I could inquire on my status after 60 days--that'll be September 16...told ya I was countin'!