As an author, to simplify the many ways to write a story, there is the pantser/discovery way, or the plotter. The phrase pantser originated from early aviation, where pilots relied on their senses to navigate without advanced instruments. Flying by the seat of their pants. Maybe skip that flight, right?

         Writing as a pantser, is fun—there is such a fun flow. You can take the character anywhere! Up. Down. To space? Riding an elephant? I’m not sure where that came from!

         Plotting for me, is more efficient, just because in writing Released, Book 1, it took an editor twice through to get it ready to publish! My free spirit way of pantsing didn’t work and cost me time and a lot of money!

         In reading How to Make a Living as a Writer by James Scott Bell, I learned that he takes a stack of index cards to a coffee shop and writes any scene that comes to mind on each card. When he gets around 30-40 cards, he divides them into three stacks: Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3.

         For the current book—the fourteenth book I’ve written—I’m almost at the end of Act 1, so I will print off those chapters, find my red pen, and read it all out loud. Reading out loud helps me find the flow, but also when it is narrated someday, the narrator doesn’t stumble over a sentence that should have been deleted.

         First draft done! Then I will print off the whole thing, find that red pen again, and read it all aloud. The manuscript becomes a bloody, red mess! I’m fully into edits.

         People talk about their Muse or someone who helps them write. I hopefully write with the Holy Spirit.

         As I edit, many times a visual opens up in a scene that I hadn’t seen before. I know that’s the Lord creating, embellishing, enriching the story, as only He can.

         That’s when the magic happens in Lines on the Page …