Meeting the bad guy

hunters_blog_4.jpgI think I’ve met my bad guy for my current WIP.  The title was originally Under Realm but I think I’ve changed it to Veil of Darkness.  Haven’t decided for sure, but hey…titles are a post for a different day.

Today I’m going to talk about my bad guy.  I’m not very happy about it.  Because I think I know who the bad guy is and it’s somebody I like.  It’s not much fun making somebody you like a killer. Although I’m trying to work so maybe he doesn’t have to be the bad guy.  There is another bad guy.  Can I have the bad guys conspiring against each other and one of them not so bad?

Having  a villian that you like makes it unsettling to write the book.  I tend to kill off my bad guys.  I don’t want to kill somebody I like.  He’s a bad ass, he’s quiet, he’s sexy.  The perfect brooder.  To me, that means the good guy.  I like brooders-I mean, I married a brooder. 

So what does this guy think he’s doing dancing around in my head with bad guy linked to his name?  Okay, so he hasn’t said anything about it yet.  Maybe he’s going to argue with me and convinces me that this vibe is wrong.  I hope so.  Harder things have worked out.

I had a similiar issue come up in The Hunters:Jonathan and Lori. Leandra made her appearance there and she was supposed to just be another killer.  Another bad guy to kill off on the road to the HEA.  Except Leandra didn’t want to be the bad guy.  So the two of us made it work.

I can’t say if that will happen this time around or not.  Too soon to tell.  But something tells me Veil is going to be another book that makes me want to bang my head on the desk. The wall.  The TV screen, just any hard, available flat surface.

On the positive side, it’s flowing better.  Last week I set the goal of getting to 30,000 words and since I was sick, I didn’t make it.  But that week gave me a few days to go through the story, sift out what didn’t work and just let the idea simmer a while.  And now I’m just a hundred words shy of last week’s deadline.  If I can hit 34000 this week, then I won’t worry about not hitting my personal deadline last week.