Book six of the "Sara X" series is taking shape and I now more or less know the direction it's going. I'm more of a "pantser" (seat of the pants writer) than a plotter. Most of the time I start a story with no real idea where it will go, only how it starts and part of the story. Then I count on the rest of the pieces falling into place as I go.

In this case, the pieces are falling into place nicely. I'm about seventeen thousand words in, but now I know where I'm going. With any luck the first draft should be ready sometime in November/December, then comes the fretting over it part as I go back and reread it multiple times, making subtle changes here and there.

After several months of that, I'll decide "it's good enough" and get around to making a cover and self-publishing it.

I was having a big debate over whether to kill a character or not. There were two opposing plotlines, both of which I liked. One required a character to die, and one didn't. I liked both plotlines and was writing both separately for a while, but now I've decided on the one. Which one? You'll have to read it to find out.

If I get bored at some point, I might create the alternate version of the book using the second plotline. Or maybe I can use that for another book at some point? We could see book 6.1 and 6.2 with alternate plotlines but both book six in the series. I haven't done that before, but it could be interesting. Or maybe that alternate plotline will become book seven in some manner? I'll worry about that another day.

So, there you have a progress report on book six.