Making good progress.

Making fast progress on RULES FOR VAMPIRES.

I'll be a third of the way through by the end of the week.  Unlike the last few books, I really don't know where it goes from there.  But I'm trusting that my subconscious is working on it in the meantime.

If you were to ask what I think my biggest weakness is, it's that I don't flesh out my stories enough.  I don't know if this is true, it's just a feeling I have.  Maybe I don't know my own weaknesses, maybe I'm all wet and I have bigger weaknesses I'm not seeing.

But that is the weakness that I'm usually concerned with.  So I try hard to put flesh on my stories which comes with the rewriting.  So that affects pacing and characterization and backgrounds and so on.

I've been reading a James Lee Burke mystery while I'm writing this latest book and there is a pretty big contrast.  He really ruminates and philosophizes a whole lot.  I tend to stick to the story.

I was writing a boy meets girl chapter last night and the lines just kept coming to me and they felt right and authentic and clever and real.   However, I don't describe the bar or the waitress or -- you get the picture.  (You don't get the picture.)  I'll go back and dress up the set, if you will.

It occurred to me that maybe the way to get past my perceived weakness is to just keep writing what I write and get better at it.  Instead of trying to change what is natural to me.

I suppose this might just be intellectual laziness.  But it also may just be a stylistic difference and what I need to do is follow my own style to it's best execution.  I feel like I'm making better use of the way I write and it compensates somewhat for the perceived weakness.

In other words, go with it.  Do my thing.  Keep doing my thing.

I can't explain why I think I'm getting better -- it feels like the smoother I write the better it feels and the better I feel the smoother I write.