My Writing Life
In our efforts to make the puzzles hard for our protagonists to solve, we set up a puzzle for ourselves that is missing pieces. Our characters have taken us on side paths that we weren’t expecting. This is great because it means we have written characters with true personalities–characters who are real and believable.
It also means that our characters have managed to do to us what we were trying to do to them.
Just as I have no idea if this book will turn out even remotely acceptable. If it doesn’t, that’s okay. It’s being written because I have to write it. It is like a purge, getting the bottled up energy out of my system, while I let the story have its way. Will I finish it? Will it take me to a place where it shows me a conclusion? Will I get halfway through, and find that it has abandoned me along a roadside somewhere, with no way to continue the journey?
I guess I’ll find out.
Then, this evening, I was washing dishes. Suddenly, there was a story knocking at the inside of my brain. It wasn’t just the bare concept of a story, but actually had the rudiments of a plot, some interesting characters, a conflict, potential danger…. It wasn’t enough to be a full-grown book, but what book starts out fully grown?
Gayle Nastasi 