I’m going through a delicious plot-fizzing stage with Danger: Deep Water.  What ifs are bursting in my head like fireworks.

I’m particularly interested in the sub plot of this one. Sitting in a coffee shop this afternoon I was mulling through ways for the villain and young sub plot characters to interact, muttering to myself.

If I do that, then that changes the girl’s character this way and I can do that…. And that way I don’t have to kill the interpol guy.

Nah, I thought quite clearly.  I really want people to die in this one. . .

Hmmmm.

I can only be thankful I didn’t say it out loud… 

For any internet police types wandering through, I am PLOTTING a BOOK.  Okay?

EDIT:-  I’ve just updated my home page… and there are some rather hot hero pictures to be found there!  Go see!

Can anyone explain to me how and why I have my hero and heroine trapped in a Tudor underground passage between two pele towers?

What are they doing there?  How did they get there?

How will they get out???

Actually, I know the answer to some of those questions.  They’ve been hiding out at the heroine’s deceased relatives’ (Great Aunt/Uncle?  Grandparents?  I’ve not decided yet) unoccupied home, which is a 300 year old farmhouse attached to a 500 year old tower.   Someone’s disturbed them (could be the villain, the sub-plot protagonist or a stray lawyer I’ve got running around) and she’s led the hero into the preserved escape tunnel.

I’m thinking falling slab to trap them.  Maybe broken catch on the secret door.

The hero is declaring his sworn intent to dig them out with their bare hands if necessary.  He is entirely capable of this, but it may not be necessary.  The heroine is a woman of infinite resource…. 

And I have a really clear picture of the sub-plot protag meeting them as they emerge.

Other than that…  I’ll find out as I write.

And yes, it really is always this convoluted, unplanned and, well… uncertain…. in this writer’s mind.

Gotta love it. 

Have you got a Nintendo Wii?  If you do, you know what I’m talking about.  If not….

On the Wii, you can create a little cartoon character called a Mii (me).  You can make them to look like you, or fun imaginary characters (Husband has a Beardy Wierdy and Geezer in his repertoire).  You get to choose the face shape, skin colour, hair style, facial features… and so on.

It really only took me about two hours to realise I could populate the Mii Plaza with little avatars of characters from my books.  If you have a Wii, you have to try it!

Yes, I really am that sad.  I have a little Mii for Kier (rugged face and frowny eyebrows – favourite colour: black) and Jenny (blue top, bright eyes, curly dark hair) from Run Among Thorns.  I have Miis for Alan (blond hair, good jaw, blue eyes and charming smile, in a white shirt) and Marianne (cute brunette hair, beautiful eyes, bit of a startled pout) from Dangerous Lies.

Then I got on to Gareth (favourite colour: blue – with thick dark hair and a wry smile) and Lisa from Danger: Deep Water.  And in the course of messing around with options discovered that Lisa likes hot tangerine and raspberry shades, if given the chance, and is quite a bit taller than I’d at first realised, and has cheekbones to die for.

Huh.  There really is no limit to where you can find inspiration, if you’re a writer, is there?

Some of my best plot-breakthrough moments in writing have come courtesy of Husband.

Writing is a solitary profession.  You have wonderful writer friends at the end of an e-mail, but if you can’t articulate what the problem with your story is, it’s hard to type it out in an e-mail.  I’d been unhappy about an element of the book I’m currently writing for a good while, but not able to put my finger on what was wrong.  I’d tried to solve a plot problem with a character and a device that just wasn’t properly motivated, but I couldn’t find a way to do it differently.

In Keswick with Husband, settling into a leather sofa with a rare caffeinated treat in hand, I tried to explain it.  He thought carefully about it and suggested mercenaries.  With laser guns.  And jet packs.  Shouting, “it’s zapping time!”  Then, when my back was turned, he wrote BOOBIES in big red letters across page 10 of the MS.

In between beating him with a toasted pannetino and laughing so hard I hurt, I explained why these elements wouldn’t work… and in doing so immediately saw what WOULD work.

He grinned the knowing smile of a spouse who perfectly understands he can’t solve my plot problems for me, but by making outlandish suggestions and generally making me laugh, can make my writing brain solve them myself.

But I’m still not making anyone shout, “it’s zapping time!”

… I can’t ignore it any more.  No matter how much I don’t want to, and how tedious and difficult it’s going to be, I’m going to HAVE to do a timeline for the opening chapters of Danger: Deep Water.

*collapses on desk sobbing inconsolably*

Yes, a timeline.  Last time I had to do this, it was for Dangerous Lies, and I had to use both a spreadsheet and a map to work out the movements of the heroine and her kidnappers, the hero and his friend, and another villain, across thousands of square miles of Saharan desert.

*shudder*

This time I’ve got to try and map the movements of seven different characters on land and sea, with four different starting locations, flights, drives and a long-distance swim.

Oh, and three boats.

*more sobbing on desk*

Can’t I just write fun stuff and hope it all adds up???  No? 

Dang.

*Anna gets out her maps and coloured pencils.  Again.*

If you don’t hear from me in a few days, send search parties.  And chocolate.

I have a wonderful little book with quotes in it.  I probably bought it for a prize or a present and promply forgot about it, but it surfaced in the clutter on my desk the other day.

One particular serene quote caught my eye.

The strong, calm man is always loved and revered.  He is like a shade-giving tree in a thirsty land, or a sheltering rock in a storm.  (James Allen)

Which immediately made me think of Gareth, in the current WIP, DANGER: DEEP WATER.

Because he is a rock – kind, gentle, strong, with an immovable sense of honour.  He’s not the kind of man Lisa, the heroine, is used to at all.  Perhaps that’s why she’s so committed to provoking him, to knocking him off-balance.

In Dangerous Lies, my second book, Gareth showed his colours, established himself as a friend in a tight corner, a generous, but private, ruthlessly self-contained man. 

Which is why it came as such a surprise when, about a third of the way through DANGER: DEEP WATER, he turned into the World’s Angriest Man.*

Then I happened to look at enneagrams one day, and found something that made me laugh out loud.  Because Gareth is clearly a One, a perfectionist, “focused on personal integrity and … wise, discerning and inspiring in their quest for the truth,” chiefly demanding perfection of himself.  And what is the chief vice of a One?

Anger.

You’ve gotta laugh.

* Admittedly, she’s just blown up his yacht.  Well, not her directly, but the trouble she’s trailing behind like the poison tail on a dark comet.  So he’s lost his home, refuge, all his possessions…. etc etc… 

… the current preoccupations.

I’m working on WIP, DANGER: DEEP WATER, which picks up a secondary character from DANGEROUS LIES two years after that book finishes.

Gareth Lacy (inspired by Gerard Butler) is an ex Navy diver, specialising in mine-clearance.  He knows all about going down into the depths of darkness in search of the evil that men leave behind.  Now that’s all behind him, and he lives out his days aboard his shabby yacht Orpheus in the Mediterranean, avoiding people, life, love, and trying to escape the nightmares of his past.

Lisa’s nightmares are right here, right now. 

(I think Lisa looks a bit like Roselyn Sanchez, pictured below – she gets her looks from her spanish mother.)

Her free-spirit, less-than-truthful ways got Lisa in deep with a man and his ‘business’.  When Lisa realised what she was in to, she bailed, jumping overboard miles from shore.  Trusting to her strength and wits, she invites herself aboard Gareth’s yacht, Orpheus, enlists his help, and promptly blows his life apart.

Question is, can she help him put it together again?  And can Gareth trust a woman who lies with every breath or, better yet, can he teach her to be truthful?

Lies will run them into danger.  But the truth will draw them in deep.