Camp NaNoWriMo is now a wrap and along with it my first draft of the Caffrey Conversation story Set in Amber. Camp turned into an unexpected adventure. I'd signed up, fully expecting to write a complex, international con. Aim for the sky, right? But somewhere around the third night, several characters crashed my neatly arranged tent and transformed it into a pirate ship. I was given two choices—write the kind of story they wanted or walk the plank. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with an outline. But over mugs of grog, their faces streaked with melted chocolate from s'mores, the pirate crew insisted that writing an outline was the best way for them to pounce on an idea and hijack it. Is that a good thing? It's certainly more fun. Readers will have a chance to judge the results for themselves next spring.
