Almost Finished

I’m writing the last few chapters of my current writing project, and hopefully my next novel, Trilogy Lakes, and it is getting tricky. I’ve been following the outline chapter after chapter, but as I’ve been writing, the story has changed, and most of my remaining chapter outlines will no longer work. All those minor changes I’ve made along the way have added up. For example, I added an unplanned character a third of the way through. He has slowly changed the storyline to the point that one of the remaining chapters is dominated by him. Nothing is ever simple.

I started reading a novel a couple of days ago; Sooley by John Grisham. Grisham is one of my favorite authors—he has been for years. Every time I read one of his books, I learn something. I love his writing style. He writes in a clear, comfortable way that puts the story first.

In this novel, he combines two worlds: basketball and life in South Sudan, Africa. College basketball in the U.S. and civil war in Africa are not usually discussed together. But Grisham has put these subjects together, and they create a fascinating story. I’m a college basketball fan and regularly attend our local university's games. There have been players on the team from Australia, Germany, France, Serbia, and other countries. I’ve often wondered how they found their way to Idaho. Grisham's novel gives me a glimpse of how that may have occurred.

If John Grisham can weave a great story like this by combining two unexpected elements, hopefully, I can learn from that and finish mixing my new character and his story into my book. Anyway, my new character has taken over an essential part of my story, and I can’t stop him.

I’ll follow up later.

By the way, I took the photo of the deer the other night from my backyard. Ten deer came by and hung out for a while. That had never happened before.