This past week
I've been a little frustrated in my goal to keep my butt in the chair, and my
fingers on the keyboard, and write. Life keeps interfering with my attempts to
return to normal and it's starting to really stress me out.
Before the trips
we undertook at the end of July and in mid August, I was on a roll, writing
wise. I was able to stick to a pretty good daily routine, and produce words at a
very satisfying rate.
When I say this
to people who are not writers, they'd don't quite get it. How can they? Now, it
isn't that I think that, as a writer, I'm any better than anyone else. I don't,
and I'm certainly not; however, I am different.
My non-writing
family and friend will say, well, just sit down and do it! And they have a
point, to a degree. But in reality it is a bit more complicated than
that.
Facebook is
resplendent with funny little cartoons and posts about writers and their
peculiar proclivities. I can tell you that most of those "stereotypes" – the
ones that say we writers are somewhat neurotic, annoyingly myopic (focus-wise)
and daydreaming hermits – these all apply to me.
I'm happiest
when I'm at home, at my keyboard, working on my current "work in progress". That
is never more true than when am able to I slip into the "zone" and become as one
with my characters.
What that means
is that as I write, my mind becomes filled with the characters and their
journey, and if I've done my homework right, and if I'm lucky, in a sense I
become my characters: so that, as I "live" the plot I'm creating, my words – the
characters' words – are theirs, and not mine.
And you thought
authors were sane!
On my latest
edit, my wonderful editor had a comment that I really want to have framed. To
paraphrase, with each new installment of my series that I create, my characters'
interaction becomes richer, the banter becomes livelier, and the heart of the
town I've imagined really shines through.
This is what I
love about my job. Readers read to escape for a little while. It's like grown-up
recess, isn't it? You pick up a book, and for a little bit of time you leave
your own reality behind, and live in someone else's world. While you're reading
your mind and heart and soul get a break from the stress, from the handling and
the living. That part of you breathes.
It's all of that
and more, being an author.
You'll hear us
talking about things like character arcs and plot points, and you might think
that writing is for the most part an exercise in logic and elements combined to
tell a story and again, you'd be partly right.
Everyone's
process is different, and every one of us who writes approaches what we do with
a completely different mind-set—although there are levels where we can connect
to each other with near-perfect synchronicity.
When I'm working
on a novel, I don't get very far if I don't know the heart of these character's
story. What past events in their lives do they need to overcome? What lessons do
they have to learn now? How are they like you and me, but different, and what
can we do together—my characters and I—that will somehow touch you, our
readers?
Some of those
things I really don't know when I begin my first draft. They are the lampposts
of discovery I make as I embark on the journey of writing each individual story.
And more often
than not, where I end up when I'm finished is not where I'd thought I would be
when I started out.
Love,
The only dream I've ever had was to be a published author. It was a dream formed in childhood, and held on to through the business of growing up. Life intruded, as life does, and my dream was put on hold. But now, through hard work, faith, and luck dream has evolved into reality.
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