I leave on Tuesday for Billund, Denmark for BIONICLE meetings -- one afternoon of 2007-2008 story meeting, and two days of what we call "big bang" meetings where we talk with all the reps from the different market areas. Hopefully, they will be productive meetings and everyone will come out of them excited about BIONICLE 2007. (They have even asked me to read part of BIONICLE #6 there.)
After I am back, it is a month home and then off to Comic-Con in July. Fortunately, EXO-FORCE #3 is almost
Bink posted in my last entry asking whether the time I spend on a book includes outline and plotting as well as the actual writing.
Answer is basically no, because I do not outline my books. I don't want to know what is going to happen ahead of time, it gets boring then. I like to be as surprised as my readers when the pieces fall together. That is how I have always written, dating back to when I first started -- I avoid outlines like the plague, I think it robs writing of its spontaneity.
BIONICLE Legends #6: City of the Lost is done and on its way to Scholastic!! Hope folks like it ... it's a little different than the other books I have done, in some respects, but I think it holds together and has a nice cliffhanger ending.
Tomorrow I am in NYC to meet with my editors and brief them on BIONICLE and EXO-FORCE 2007, and discuss some other issues. Then Wednesday I start EXO-FORCE Book 3, which is due in two weeks (and has to get done in less, since I leave for Denmark on the 13t
It's looking like Book 6 will need a polish -- need to shift some Matoran roles around and the villains need to be more evil. Unlike some previous years, we are not just abandoning the high priced sets as we enter the new year -- a lot of the summer '06 characters will continue into the '07 story in some way, shape or form, which I think is good for the story and fair to the people who went out and bought the sets.
Just told the BIONICLE bosses in Denmark how this book ends -- hopefully, they
Saturday morning, and still 6000 words to go on BL #6. Behind schedule, especially with an EXO-FORCE book to be started right after this. Sometimes, when you hit the three-quarter mark, the book picks up speed and finishes itself -- sometimes you are still pushing the ol' sled uphill.
Eventful month coming up -- meeting with Scholastic on Tuesday, then off to Billund for BIONICLE meetings, and then a week of LEGO Club meetings. Going to be hard to squeeze writing in with all that. As I alway
