Wha-huh?

When I first started plotting Spark, admittedly I had NO IDEA where it was going. I'm trying to write Taming the Ancients by the seat of my pants, and that's not happening very well either. I think that I'm forced to outline these two, at least. I have no clear-cut ideas about either of them. I vaguely know Point A to Point Z kinds of things, but as far as the actual PLOT, I couldn't tell you. I've had these ideas for months, but they've mostly been ideas, even though TTA is over 10,000 words. So far, Machial is the only character really doing something... Argh.

It's partially my fault. I haven't been communicating with them very well. I'm introducing 2 new characters to the Spark world, and as it turns out, one of them wants to be the MC. Anyone who follows my inane tweets will know that Rose won, but I'm not sure how well that's sitting with Duke right now. Duke wants to be a MC, too. I've debated making their stories into separate books, BUT the storylines intersect quite a bit.

Here are my problems (and I'm sure at least one of you who reads this has run into a similar sitch):

1) Rose is more comfortable in 3rd person/limited/past tense
2) Duke is more comfortable in 1st person/present tense
3) Neither of them wants to switch.

I have been thinking about making Duke's sections a journal (a la Bram Stoker's Dracula, but not as painfully dull) that Rose finds during the investigation. That way, Duke will still have scenes, as she's involved with the investigation herself, and I can maintain the present tense that she seems to enjoy. I'm not comfortable writing an entire novel in present. Even though it worked beautifully for Suzanne Collins and is working well so far for The Windup Girl, I'm not sure I can pull it off. I'm a traditionalist.

I started the Plot Outline Course from Holly Lisle's online courses. Well, I paused to write a blog post... I'll let you know how this works out.

....shouldn't the second novel be easier than the first? Argh.