Problems with "Bigfoot Ranch":

1.) Taking too long to get to the action scenes. About 13K words in.
2.) The bulletproof Bigfoot costume, which undercuts the "seriousness" of the book.
3.) Introducing the love interest 65% of the way into the book.

Solutions to the problems:

1.) None. I like all these problems. It may be I'm just too idiosyncratic and quirky to write mainstream books. If so, I'll accept it.

In other words, I'm struggling with the intellectual awareness of what I need to do, and the stubborn creative partof me that wants what it wants.

Basically, my solution is to write another book and try harder to stick to the formula.


 I've had "Bigfoot Ranch" mapped out through the first 65% of the book, with a vague concept of how I wanted it to end. As usual, about 20K words in, I figured out the next 30K words.

The latest five or six chapters I already worked out in my mind weeks ago, so was just a matter of putting them down on page.

Though I'm writing these scenes as I imagined them, they don't feel inspired. Basically, the inspiration came when I imagined it. This is just coloring between the lines. It always alarms a little when this happens. It's one of the reasons I don't outline my books. I need the feeling that I might be surprised.

Anyway, I've got three chapters left that I pre-envisioned. After that, it is a blank slate except for the very, very end, for which I have a hazy vision.

At this point in the book, I thought that I'd have to pull the hero out of the wilderness and back to Bend, and that seemed abrupt and wrong, somehow. Yesterday, I figured out that all the elements that made the Bend scenes necessary could brought into the wilderness.  I can bring out the characters I want to join Hart, rather than having Hart go to them.

Much better.

I'm bringing in the love interest at 50K words. I've tried to foreshadow her through a couple of flashback scenes and a couple other references, but I'm well aware that it is late in the book. I figure I have to write about 8 chapters where Hart and Nicole are on the run, with the pursuit being ramped up. (More searchers, helicopters, dogs, etc.) Nicole being another wildnerness guide will know how to escape detection. Something like that.

Then the ending.

I came up with what I thought was a really cool epilogue. Like all really cool postscripts, it's a little silly. Which is what makes them fun.