To say that I’ve been excited about sitting down to outline my manuscript is a bit understated. Ever since I discovered that there are left-brained ways to tackle writing, my fingers have been itching to get back to fiction.

I’m finally starting to adjust to my new work load, so I’ve been able to free up time to make believe. This past weekend I found a few minutes for fiction. I opened Open Office, then opened a new document.

Wait…what? Callie is already saved. I meant to open that document, right?

Maybe, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t happen. What did happen was that I started writing, and writing, and writing, and I put down 3,000 words of Jennie’s story.

But who’s Jennie?

I’ve been putting so much time and energy into Callie. I talked about her at the ACFW conference, fine tuning her pitch and figuring out the main flaw in her plot. I studied Bell’s “Plot and Structure”, working through his exercises with Callie in mind.

So where did Jennie come from?

I never planned on, nor did I ever mean to be, a person who writes more than one story at a time. I’m still not sure that I want (or even that I will). But here’s what’s going on…

Callie’s story takes place during the summer. Jennie’s is a snow covered tale. As silly as this sounds, it’s getting colder here in the tundra, and as it does, it gets harder to think about Callie in her flip flops and sun dresses. I still love her story, and I’m having a fabulous time outlining it (I’ll take a picture soon and show you), but I just can’t seem to write the story.

Outline, yes. Write, no? Why is that?

I don’t know. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on here. Maybe I need to co-author a book with a good psychologist about the influence of the seasons on a person’s productivity. It doesn’t really make sense, but at the same time it does.

So what do I do? Do I tuck Callie aside while I tell Jennie’s story, or do I stick with the plan and finish Callie first?

QUESTION: Has this ever happened to you? What do you think?