Love lost, love flourishes, sinister vengeance begins. In this first novel of the series, a bad relationship dies, giving birth to a new love between young friends. The vengeance that creates takes you through the romance/spy novel/who-done-it thriller that is Planning Vengeance. The twists and turns reveal hidden pasts, clever players and plot twists, a sinister character hell-bent on revenge and some great nostalgia for some readers. A well written, easy read that takes you on a journey that binds three families in a twisted tale of vengeance and love, and leaves you wanting more.

And it’s FREE.

So, grab your copy TODAY, even if you aren’t ready to read it yet. It’ll be yours to read at your leisure.

To start with, I use Evernote. I use it to track my characters. I have a lot of characters that develop over several novels. Because of that, I keep records of many of them so that they can be consistent over time. As I create a character, I will give them a birthday, a picture, a back story and work out more of their details. I will also copy their physical description into their profile card. Sometimes I have to change something, and I will update that in the profile card.

Some of my other “characters” might also get a profile card. By this I usually mean vehicles, although there are a couple of houses that have cards, too. But I have a variety of cars and planes that I have profiled.

Like I said, I want to be consistent.

Also, in the case of the Dixon-Prince series, I use specific dates. That opens up a host of issues… like making sure characters are only one place at a time, and making sure it is physically possible to get from one scene to the next. I actually have a spreadsheet in Excel that tracks EVERY day mentioned in the whole series. There is a VERY brief note of the major item for that day.

And, since I used a specific day, I have also gone back and checked weather, sunrise, sunset and even tides for that day and location… usually… I do cheat sometimes with the weather. But, other times, it gives my character a workout to figure out how to deal with the weather or whatever physical challenges might have existed on that day.

usually , those sources are adjusted and added to on my read-throughs… which I’ll get to next week.

Spoiler: I love my Beta Readers.

“Pantsing” is some sort of made up euphemism for “writing from the seat of one’s pants.” And that’s what I basically do. I have some sort of idea of where the story is starting, and possibly a little about where it is going to go, but rather than carefully plan out everything beforehand, I just start writing.

There are several drawbacks to writing like this. First, I don’t know how long the story will be. Some have been WAY longer than I thought, but others are much shorter. Another drawback is that as I write, details may change. The problem with that is that I have to go back and find the details that may change…

Sometimes, I don’t even know if a character is good, bad or neutral as they are introduced. I might have an idea, but sometimes it’s wrong.

All that means that I break one of the first rules of writing… I make inline revisions. Everything I read says that I need to write the entire first draft before making revisions.

I. Just. Can’t.

I can’t leave those things alone. If I KNOW I have an artifact earlier in the story that is now wrong, I have to go back and change it while I’m thinking about it. I do the same things with spelling and grammar… if I see it. I know I’ll make those mistakes… and plenty of them… so the sooner I see one and deal with it, the better I feel.

So, the first step, at least for me, is to just sit down and write. I will start with the barest idea of a plot, but I do NOT have all of the details, plot twists or even conflicts worked out. Others do… and that is AWESOME, but it doesn’t work for me.

I’d love to know if you want to write, and maybe learn about your process.

The process I personally use involves me writing (usually with some inline correction of errors… glaring, obvious errors). Then, I try to check for spelling, grammar and continuity (using the automated tools in Word). After that, I do a complete read through of my draft. Once again, as I read I look for the same type of errors, especially word usage issues and other things that won’t show from the automated tools. I also look for “voice”… making sure a character is consistent, or growing at a reasonable rate.

Then I have a first draft. For me, that means I have probably read it five to ten times. I’ve also changed a bunch of stuff and looked at it out of order a few times, too.

In other words, I am confused…

So, I step back and let it go to some beta readers. A couple for each one are trusted readers.. they have read several previous things (now that I have several previous things) and provided feedback. A couple more haven’t done that before, so this is their first time out of the gate.

They send me their feedback and I review it. A lot. For the simple stuff, misspellings and typos, I go back and make those changes right away.

But for the deeper feedback, I stew on it. I fight and ignore, and then acquiesce that they are probably right. And I make the changes, often rewriting significant portions of the book. Once again, it is back to me to read over the book as a whole. And I have to smooth out the changes to make them fit seamlessly. If I can.

At that point, I usually try to get another couple of readers to go over the draft. Hopefully it is close to ready then.

But, after publishing I find three dozen more typos… I fix those, too… Ugh.

It isn’t the first time this has happened. A couple of Dixon-Prince characters appeared near the conclusion of Undercover, which is currently out with my Beta Readers (a SERIOUSLY awesome group of people… if you want to be one, let me know). They were just right for the job at hand.

One of the things I wanted to accomplish, and part of the reason I stepped back from two of the stories I have in the works (which I do plan on getting back to…) is that I wanted to write some new characters. And I really did write new a bunch of characters… but sometimes there is a job to be done and one of your friends is the person for the job….

Anyway, I just found it funny how a character I was writing just lined up perfectly with someone already in the stable… not just the type of plot element they could contribute, but age, attitude, position… Everything just lined up. Keep in mind, this isn’t a major character, but one of the folks that keeps the plot moving.

I’m often surprised by the elements of the stories I write.

He opened the door and peered inside.  It was dark, gloomy and there were food cartons and trash strewn about the single room.  It stank of rancid milk and rotting vegetables.  Deke winced from the smell and quickly closed the door.  That’s how it always was. 

The Sheriff turned and headed toward the shed.  As he came around the corner, he saw the door open and something lying on the ground.  He quickened his pace, only to find his brother in a heap over the threshold.  His skull was caved in and there was a hammer a couple of feet away.  Blood was streaked across the floor. 

He hadn’t heard the other squad car pull into the gravel drive behind his and almost jumped out of his skin when Deputy Tate appeared behind him. 

“Betsy, this is Tate, I’m at the Sheriff’s brother’s place.  We need an ambulance,” he said into his radio, startling the Sheriff who was on his knees next to his brother.  “Might call the State Police about getting their crime scene unit out here, too.”

“Ten-Four, Unit Two, Dispatch out,” Betsy Williams, the dispatcher, replied. 

A second later the Sheriff’s radio crackled to life, “Dispatch to Unit One, we have a report there is a problem at Von Stutz’s place, over.”

“I’m already here, Betsy.  Cancel the ambulance.  He’s dead.  Call Henderson Brothers,” he said, referencing the funeral home in town. 

“I’m sorry, Deke,” She relied over the radio, dropping the jargon. 

The Sheriff suddenly turned to Deputy Tate.  “I passed a Jeep when I was leaving here.  I’m going to head up the mountain and see if I can find it.  Don’t.  Touch.  Anything.  Got it?”

“Yes, Sir.  I’ll make sure everything stays just like it is, and I’ll meet Jack Henderson when he gets here to collect your brother.  I’m sorry, Deke,” Deputy Tate said as he put his hand on the boss’s shoulder.

The Sheriff jogged back to his squad car and headed up the mountain on the narrow road.  It had been a while, but the Jeep either went to run the old road over the mountain, or it went up to Hilltop Estates.  It was probably too late, but his gut told him they were running the old road.  Jeeps ran that road all the time. 

His tires spit gravel and he floored it heading back out onto the road.  He squealed up the mountain, looking for the Jeep he’d passed.  It had been an hour, but people running the road often stopped just before the rock garden and aired down their tires and got ready to drive the real part of the trail.

The girl couldn’t have gotten the drop on his brother.  He’d seen her.  She was petite… maybe a hundred-ten or a hundred-twenty pounds, and only about five-four.  His brother was six-three, and even if he couldn’t take care of himself, he still seemed to recall everything he had learned about hand-to-hand combat in the military.  Someone had to have helped her.  He didn’t care that his brother had done horrible things to a bunch of girls… Von was sick and couldn’t help it.  She wouldn’t have been able to overpower him and murder him.  He knew he needed to find her and silence her before she exposed his brother… and him. 

This concludes the first chapter. I’d love for you to read it and give me your feedback. As I mentioned, this one is a departure from my other novels, so I would really like to hear what you think. Thank you, Lane