Q1 2009, I'm writing the first draft of Regulated for
Murder, book five of my series. I'm also taking two online courses and
participating in the Chocolate Challenge.

Kris Neri's online course runs through the end of
February. "Mystery and Thriller Structure" provides a methodology for
a writer to focus the elements of novel development and advance her manuscript
from an idea to a fully-planned novel that's ready to write. Sounds good to me,
as long as I don't have to plot the whole novel in advance. I've never been
able to do that. As soon as I know where to start and end a novel, and I have
an idea of a few plot points that I must hit in between, I begin writing the
novel. I get out of the way and let my characters fill in the rest.

This week's assignment for Kris's class is writing the
"root story." As they say in screenwriting, "two dogs, one
bone." In other words, describe what the antagonist and the protagonist
want that puts them at odds with each other. While this may seem simple, after
a writer has been thinking about an unwritten story for awhile, all the
sub-plots start filling in, and the root story can get obscured. So stating the
root story up-front provides a destination and contributes clarity to the
process.

 I had some trouble
concentrating on the assignment yesterday, when we got nearly six inches of
snow in Raleigh. The magnificent sledding hill four blocks away called loud and
clear, and every kid in the neighborhood hit the double-slope. My beagle
Annabelle insisted on coming along and rode down the slope on the sled. (In the
arms of a human, of course.)