Meredith Mansfield, Author

Sometimes I’d really like to be able to outline a story and know exactly how it goes. But that’s just not the way it works for me.

I do at least map out the high (and low) points of a novel before I start. (Though they have been known to change as I go, too.) But I could sit and stare at the screen for days waiting for the inspiration to know how to fill in the very wide blank spaces that leaves. It just would never come.

The only time those ideas come to me is when I’m actually writing. Well, not necessarily when I have my fingers on the keyboard. But, you know, when I’ve gotten up for a little and I’m walking the dogs or (infrequently) cleaning the house. That’s when I get the ideas for how to get from point A to point B. But only if, when I sit back down, I’m actually writing the story.

And, anyway, sometimes a story will just take a left turn and go somewhere else instead. And that’s often better than what I’d planned.

Not going to happen in the last book of the DUAL MAGIC series. (At least, I don’t think so.) But that is exactly what happened in DAUGHTER OF THE DISGRACED KING.