Paper chase

      One of the reasons I'd like to have a larger house is so that I could have an office. Currently I occupy a small corner of my small living room. But I'd like a space where I could spread my book out in nice neat piles. Even though my current book is a fantasy, it's amazing the amount of research and notes that it requires. I lose a lot of time as I shuffle papers, look for things and generally drive myself batty as I chase paper around my living room.
      I try to keep research on the computer as much as possible, but that leads to ten or 11 or more documents open at one time. Yikes. I sometimes get lost.
      Which is where my characters are -- lost in the Wilderness. Notice the capital letter on Wilderness. I want it to be wild, to deserve that capital, to deserve the fear it creates in most people. So far, I have ghosts, tribes of wild wandering elves, deserted farmhouses and lots of bodies. But it needs more. I thought of wolves but rejected that as a lot of fantasy books have wolves, and I can't think of a new wrinkle for them. So we'll see what happens next. Sadly enough, I'm confident in my subconscious's ability to produce a few more nightmares.
      Gloria asked yesterday how I know what words are "keepable" of my writing. I thought about that a lot today, and I don't think I really have a definite answer. I guess I'm guided by instinct and logic. Logic tells me if it makes sense, and instinct tells me if it's interesting. The second part is most important. As a reader, I will forgive a bit of illogic, but if you bore me, I'll put the book aside and move on. There are too many good books in the world for me to waste my time on a boring one. I figure my readers will be same. They don't want to be bored. Of course, I'm hoping my writing will be both logical and interesting, but my readers will make that determination.
      Speaking of readers, I will be looking for a few first readers when the whole blamed mess is finished. Crystal has already volunteered herself, and I hope to find a few others (hint, hint, hint) who will read the book and catch those inevitable errors before I send it off to another agent and/or publisher. Now, don't worry; you have at least until July to decide if you can do it. And this reminds of one of the nicest compliments that I have received on the book. Crystal was reading an early version to help me during my mad scramble to get it to the interested agent. She told that she kept getting caught up in the story and forgetting to look for errors. That was major cool to hear. Thank you, Crystal. Night!