There’s so much to love about writing, but my favorite part is plotting. It’s the dreaming and world-building in my quiet office that brings me satisfaction. I like to move story ideas around, then move them around again. Pick, move, tear, replace, dream.

Recently, I sent a six-book series idea to my editor. I don’t know why six brothers came to mind. I’d written twelve brothers before in the Jefferson Brothers series. And I’d recently watched SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS. Maybe that was lying around in the creative flotsam in my brain. No one knows how the writer brain works. It’s just go, go, gadget go, or something.

And so I began like this:

DR. DREAMBOAT AND HIS TWIN DARLINGS

Chapter One

Jonas Jones didn’t believe in magic. Nor did he believe in pushy old beloved aunts trying to rule from the grave, as Aunt Fiona obviously thought she would.

“You’re suggesting that your time is running out,” Jonas said to his aunt as she held court in the massive library at Rancho Diablo in New Mexico. His five brothers lounged around the room in various states of stubbled beards and dirty jeans, fresh from working the ranch. They were trying to help her out while on their Christmas vacations, though God alone knew that if anybody did not need help, it was their cagey aunt.

“I am seventy-nine,” Fiona said. “Please speak to me with respect. You make me sound as reliable as a bedside clock.”

“You’ve just told us that you’re leaving Rancho Diablo to one of us based on a dream you had,” Jonas said, electing himself, as the eldest, as spokesman for the brothers. “We’re more interested in your health than in your will, Aunt Fiona.”

“Oh, poppycock.” She sniffed, put out with him. No doubt she thought he was trying to mollify her, coddle her along and get into her good graces. It annoyed him. He was a successful surgeon. He didn’t need her ranch. In fact, he didn’t want Rancho Diablo. He made his home in Texas, in a cozy little area inside Dallas. Why would he want to give all that up to come work his butt off at Rancho Diablo?

“You want Rancho Diablo because it was your father’s,” Fiona said. “Let’s be honest about our motivations.”

If that wasn’t calling the kettle black.

“Aunt Fiona, I speak for all of us—” he indicated his lounging brothers who were only too content to allow him to beard the celestial-minded, determined aunt in her den—”when I say that we don’t believe in dreamscapes, incantations, voodoo, or rubbing the venerated bellies of mystical bunnies dating from the time of Lewis Carroll. So my motivation is simple. I came back to Rancho Diablo to visit you for Christmas because I love you, as much as you seem inclined to look for an ulterior motive. And that was it.”

Murmurs of assent rose from his brothers, though other than that, they seemed content to allow him to chart the course. His aunt gave him a disapproving sour look. She was a tiny woman, a bundle of petite dynamite in a navy blue wool dress. Her only concession to the bitter cold was what she called her bird boots—knee-high, lugged soles, fur-lined. White hair was pulled severely back from her face in an elegant updo she called a bird’s nest. It did have the same sort of peculiar order of a mourning dove’s nest, but it was attractive. There wasn’t a spare ounce of flesh on the diminutive aunt, which made people at first meeting assume she was fragile.

She was not.

“Nevertheless,” she said, her eyes bright behind her glasses, “I am following my dream.”

“You do that.” Jonas stoked the fire. He wondered if it were be easier on his aunt if he had gas-lit logs installed in the seven fireplaces throughout the huge ranch house, decided she’d resist the implication that she couldn’t take care of her home herself.

“Since Jonas doesn’t care about his stake in Rancho Diablo, that leaves it to the rest of you to see which of you will take over the ranch. When I’m gone, naturally. Which might be any day now.” She held a tissue to her nose. “This is the third cold I’ve had this month. My immune system is so weak.”

Jonas straightened. “You said nothing about feeling weak.”

“Not that you would care, Doctor.” She rubbed her glasses clean and replaced them on her doll-like nose. “Burke, please bring the brandy. We are all in need of a bit of fortification. Except Jonas, who is always generously above the fray.”

Her lifelong butler went to do her bidding. Jonas sighed and sat down on the leather sofa where he had a premier seat to stare out the window at the frozen landscape. “I’ll take the damn brandy,” he said as Burke offered him a snifter. Right now, he could use a stiff one.

“The terms of the deal—which have also been written into my revised will–are thusly. The first of you who gets married to a suitable woman, has a family, and settles down, will then inherit Rancho Diablo. You may not sell the land or house, of course, without all six of you being in agreement. That is what was revealed to me in a dream.”

“When was this dream?” Judah asked.

Jonas was glad to hear one of his cowardly brothers speak up. He relaxed a little. Surely the rest of them could see that there were as many holes in this plan as swiss cheese. Honestly, what was to stop all of them from running out, hiring a woman to fake a marriage and perhaps a pregnancy, and then cashing in? He swallowed, not wanting to think about his little aunt turning up daisies. She was his favorite relative, the only parent they’d ever known, really.

“It wasn’t so much a dream, it was more a premonition,” Fiona said. “It occurred when I talked to a nice lady at the traveling carnival in October.”

Creed sat up. “Traveling carnival?”

“That’s right. She was standing outside her tent. There was a sign on it that said Madame Vivant’s Fortunetelling. Now, I don’t believe in those sorts of things, but several of the ladies from the Books’n'Bingo Society decided it sounded like fun. So we went in.”

Jonas heard his brother, Rafferty, groan. He agreed with the sentiment. Was their adorable, feisty aunt beginning to show the start of some affliction that would affect her mental capacity? His blood ran cold at the thought.

“As a matter of fact, I’ve invited her here tonight. Burke, please show Madame Vivant into the library.”

Jonas felt his jaw drop. The woman who walked in was a sight for sore masculine eyes. He could smell enticing perfume, hear the jingle of tiny charms she wore on silver bracelets. No more than five feet two, he judged, Madame Vivant was a delightful babe of about twenty-five—he’d bet the whole “dream” was a ruse for her to get hitched to one of them. Madame Fortuneteller his ass—more like Madame Shakedown Artist.–end

And so on, and so forth. It was a rough draft, but it was a start.  I obsessed over it for a while, then moved on.  I needed six titles, which would hopefully entice my editor and prospective readers. It’s always taken me days to hit on decent titles. Some get kept, some don’t. Went through several series name ideas, finally settling on Rancho Diablo after playing with several others. All the titles, the name of the series, even the characters, are all subject to change many times–if it ever gets out of the plotting phase and onto an editor’s desk, there’ll be more change. It’s the part where the mud gets cleaned out and you search for the clarity of crystal-clean story to the best of your abiility. Still having fun at this point.

Once I had all that somewhat under control, I decided I didn’t like the order of the brothers, and needed to change it all around. Ripping of hair ensued. Remember, plotting is my favorite part of the process! I promise it is.

The final stage is when I decide I hate it all, it’s too stupid for words. The reviewers will make bonfires out of it, the readers will bury the books in the backyard where nothing will grow for the next sixty years because the earth has been poisoned by the foulness of my writing. Once I reach the stage of despair and self-inflicted doubt, I have hit my personal flashpoint.

There’s nothing that can be done at this point. I have to send it to my agent and my editor, and let them decide whether or not it will get voted off of Publishing Island.

Now I’m not having fun anymore. If I picked the shoe on the gameboard, I wish I’d picked the top hat, so to speak. My least favorite part of writing–and probably every other writer’s least fave part–is the wait. Anything can happen at this treacherous point on the path to publication. The only thing that can be done–at least for me–is to occupy myself plotting another story. Or two or three, depending on the time of year and how much an editor has on her prodigous plate. Nobody likes the wait, but there’s no point wearing out your incisors and all your friends, so you turn the channel and focus on something else.  The really with-it writers probably take a break and make friends, organize their offices, shave their legs, etc., during their waits, but not me.  I belong to the Nervous School Of Writers, and so off to a fresh Page One I go.

Just about the time I think I’m going to go mad, I may never write another book because I can’t stand the not-knowing–I’ve sunk all my heart and soul into the project, and it’s just kind of, well, making me nuts not to know–the call or email finally comes.

And it’s either yes, no, or maybe, which happens in any job. And this one you can do with no makeup on, if you want to. You can write with your pets in the room, if you like. My Golden retriever loves to bounce my hand furiously as I write, and it’s a race to see how much I can get typed before he bumps me again. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and if he does it long enough, my hand will slide off the keyboard onto his head and ears, and then his belly, because he knows I’m a sucker for a needy, stinky dog.

And then after I’ve celebrated a new contract with the pet, or cried into his fur if it’s a no, thank you (the dog is really zen about tears but not so much about loud, vigorous celebrating), it’s back to plotting, which is my favorite part of writing, anyway.

I promise.

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Tina Leonard is celebrating recently selling the above proposal, and contracting for her fiftieth project. She is looking forward to her new six-book series, CALLAHAN COWBOYS, as well as a 2011 Christmas novella. DR. DREAMBOAT AND HIS TWIN DARLINGS has been changed to PETE’S THREE DAUGHTERS, tentatively scheduled for May 2011. You can find out more about Tina at www.tinaleonard.com, read her monthly Leonard Light column at www.freshfiction.com, or say hi to Tina on Twitter.