For those who are interested, I thought I’d update you on the new book. As soon as The Good Thief was put to bed–Heh. I’m learning that that never really 
happens–I started right in on the next novel. This one is historical fiction and takes place in Czechoslovakia at the outset of WWII. As with my first novel, there is a biblical analog underlying the action, which in this case is the book of Jeremiah. Without giving away the plot, the story centers around the main character, Fr. Jeremiáš Láska, a Czechoslovak priest, who is drawn into the counsels of the powerful as his country fights for its very survival.
Research is mostly complete, as is the initial plotting. Actual writing is well underway. It’s a funny thing, but I never realized just how much work is involved before a single word is written. It’s also funny how a single sentence can take an hour to write. You writers in the audience know what I mean.
I don’t know about you, but my biggest challenge in the whole writing process is continuity. By continuity, I don’t mean continuing to write, I mean continuity of story, plot, and characters. Supposedly, the Simpson’s World episode guide was created largely to help the show’s writers with this very problem. After more than 20 years on TV, they had to have a way to make sure they weren’t stepping on something they had done before. It’s a real drag to stop in the middle of chapter 20 to find out what you did in chapter 5. What’s the old saying? Measure twice, cut once?
So I’m being much stricter with the writing process in order to avoid such problems. This is a challenge because my style is more–how shall I say it?–free range. The Good Thief was a story that lived in my head for a long time. I could literally see it, and that saved me some work, but for this book I’m being more methodical. Hopefully that will produce the result I’m looking for: a tight, engaging, thought-provoking story, written in a minimum of time. As one friend always reminds me, “You have to minimize your time to market.” That’s also very important, because as my fellow-writers know, payday comes very slowwwly.
