by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Things are going really fast with this novel. But there’s one thing I find myself suddenly pondering in an unexpected way — what my heroine looks like. I had all this stuff about her thought out then something hit me. And that is the “hat on a hat” problem.
My heroine looks like a younger Nicole Scherzinger in my mind.
I know how this happened — the moment I put her in a position where she might be seen stripping “to relax” everything else needed to be rethought. As such, I’m pretty sure I’m going to pare back some elements of her appearance. She is already going to be “the girl who strips” and it would be a little too much for her to have a SECOND weird thing about her in the guise of some sort of tattoo that would serve as a mental marker in people’s minds.
I don’t like the idea that reviewers would simply say I was turning Lisbeth Salander into a stripper. Ugh.
So, I think any tattoos that my heroine has will be far more discrete than I originally imagined.
But I will note that I have a tendency to say one thing then do another when it comes to this novel. And, yet, I am starting to understand a number of elements of this novel a lot better. I’ve really fleshed out a number of secondary characters that before were rather meh.
I’m leaning into the idea that, lulz, a lot can change about a person over the course of 25 years, so it’s ok if I introduce a character one way and then they endup totally different at the end of the six novel project.
Anyway, because of personal and emotional turmoil caused by Thanksgiving, I fear I won’t get nearly as much work done on this novel as I’d like. Ugh. It’s so frustrating that I have to pause the novel while I wait for a private storm to pass.
