Sometimes writing the book takes an open mind.

I’d been struggling with The Bronze Lion for a few weeks, kicking myself in the butt and trying desperately to get things going. But no matter how hard I tried, the book just wouldn’t go. It was annoying, frustrating and I was almost ready to give up for a while and work more on other projects, interest be damned. But then I reread Stephen King’s On Writing and realized that my view of the book was all wrong, and I had to change the book’s view in order to make it work.

So I did, and the book is coming along nicely now.

One of the things an author needs to be aware of is the ever changing flow of their book. It’s one thing to say “This is how I want my book to be” and quite another to go about making it so. An author has to be flexible as they go, because oftentimes the book has other ideas and characters who shouldn’t be mentioned more than twice are suddenly jumping off the page at you, screaming “Exploit me!”. And unlike Exxon or BP, it’s not as messy to exploit your resources in this way.

What other ways do you think that an author needs to be flexible?