Writing Like Rafting

I'm working on my second Mac Crow novel now, tentatively titled Death In The High Lonesome.

Sometimes, it feels like rafting a long and wild river. I'm good at writing exciting actions sequences, but you can't have a book that's nothing but actions sequences. That's only for Michael Bay movies.

In writing this book, one of the more difficult things to write about is that my main character is a tracker. Trying to make looking for sign and footprints both easy to understand for laypersons, and also make the subject interesting proves more challenging than I ever thought it would be.

The action and drama sequences are like being in a white water chute. You're being sucked in, pulled through and everything flows fast. I can write a thousand words in one of these sections before I even look up to realize how much I've done. It always amazes me. Half the time I go back, re-read and say to myself "Wow! Did I write that? That's cool!"

The in-between scenes are quite different. Imagine you're out of the white water, and have been pulled into a big open eddy that keep swirling you away from the main current. It requires a ton of paddling to get back in the main flow again. I'll sit, write a paragraph, then have to get up and pace, often having character exchanges going on in my head (with actual hand gesturing, of course). Then back to the keyboard for another paragraph.

This goes on until I hit the main current again. Then, it's off for another exciting run down the action chute. Eventually, I go back and re-read it all, and of course it's the quiet scenes that need the most work and re-writing.

But, if I may confess something, there's still a little kid part of me that reads the whole thing and still says; "Wow! Did I write that? That's cool!"