I was reading about this today, on some cop blog site where a highway patrolman in Florida was wondering about whether there were headlights that would let him see better when he was going 125 in a high speed chase. Another cop says, you’re driving over your headlights.
Exactly, I think. I’m a writer. I know.
Driving over your headlights means you’re going faster than the illuminated distance in front of you that allows you to react. In other words, you’re moving faster than you can see things coming.
I just had that feeling this week, sitting at my desk. I was flying, barely in control. I leaned back and let off the gas.
I’m writing Brandon Blake No. 2. Working title: Port City Underground. And in a week or so, I wrote 50 pages very quickly. A first draft, but most of it definitely a keeper. But then I hit a point in this high-speed chase where I was going faster than my headlights. I didn’t know where I was going. I couldn’t see the curves coming, the deer about to leap from the woods into my path. And I felt like I was heading for a stretch of black ice.
This is part of the writing process, at least for me (every writer is different). I write scenes quickly, chapters quickly. Dialogue comes as fast as I can type. I always say that when dialogue is going well, it’s like TV. The characters chatter away and you’re just sitting there watching.
But the dialogue ends and then you come up for air. You look around and say, that was interesting. But where are we? That’s where I am with this book. Time to take a step back, look at Brandon and Mia, where they are now, where they’re headed. What is the route that will take them to the waypoints along the way? As they say in Maine (sort of), how do you get there from here? So when I step back on the writing gas and the book starts to roar off down the road, I’m at the wheel and I know where we’re going.
In PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN, the first Brandon Blake novel, Brandon gets a full dose of bad guys. A brawl in a funeral home introduces him to Joel Fuller, a sociopathic hustler. Fuller is fresh out of jail and determined to take Brandon out—after Fuller and his sidekick Kelvin shake him down.
Rocky isn’t a tough guy. He’s a skinny little kid with crooked glasses, and he shouldn’t be homeless in Portland, Maine. When McMorrow and Roxanne pluck him from under the stomping feet of a gang of street kids, Rocky latches onto McMorrow–and drags him into a world of murder, both old and new. Why is McMorrow protecting Rocky? The cops want to know. Why is Rocky on the run? McMorrow wants to know. Why does death follow in Rocky’s wake? Jack and Roxanne need to find out before they’re added to the list. 
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