No straight lines

I want read­ers to read my books from page one to … the end. I don’t write them that way. The book I’m work­ing on (still no title) is (at the moment) a mys­tery, a thriller, or some­thing like. That means I go back and forth, mak­ing sure every­thing fits togeth­er smooth­ly. Some­times, as hap­pened today on page 130, the plot shifts. That required me to return to page 10, and add some­thing to make it work. That it turn brought me to page 43, to make sure anoth­er link was adjust­ed. Anoth­er on page 75. Only then, did I go back to page 130, and move for­ward. That’s my every­day process. For­ward and back. End­less­ly. Some­times these changes are big. Some­times they are small. One of the hard parts of writ­ing a nov­el is keep­ing the whole plot—plot, events, char­ac­ters, places–in my head every moment I’m writ­ing. My hope is to cre­ate a seam­less tale that read­ers will enjoy from page one right through to the end … assum­ing I ever get there.