It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and I’ve been camping out at the cafe since 8:30am. At 2pm I was joined by good writing buddy Devin Harnois, and we’ve been alternating bouts of writing with reading to each other.

I’ve done 65,000 words of preparation and plotting. She’s done none, except for throwing over the original idea for a new one, pretty much what I did. We’re both writing like demons and rapidly falling in love with our stories… even more in love than we were before, which is saying a lot.

It takes all kinds to make a world, and a novel is a sort of world.

Planner or pantser? It just depends on how much framework you want for your improv. I have tons of backstory and I’m still discovering new and funny things about my characters. Elsa and Kirsten are best friends, and they are each other’s wingman. It helps that Elsa’s into boys and Kirsten’s into girls, of course–eliminates a possible source of sibling rivalry.

Elsa broke up with her boyfriend Georg because he referred to their household as the Island of the Amazons. (Elsa and Kirsten and Kirsten’s girlfriend Petra all live together in a sort of live-in studio and library that’s my notion of the earthly paradise.) Then they all laugh at him and proceed to nickname their apartment “The Island” ever after.

I don’t think I could write a “normal” menage if I tried.

Meanwhile my buddy is letting her character tell his story… check out the basics here. It’s a hoot.