Don't you love it when you have an epiphany? When realizing one tiny thing starts a chain reaction in your brain and you finally understand a problem that you've been facing? I just had one of those tonight!
I have a chapter where one of my characters is sent to therapy because of an incident that occurs to them. They're sent as a precautionary measure, but what comes out of this visit leads to a whole subplot and eventually leads to the introduction of one of my other main characters.
As a person who's been in therapy before, when I heard that my character was being sent to talk to someone about how an event affected her, my mind immediately flew to the realms of therapy, psychiatrists, the stereotypical couch, and the "how do you feel about that..." nonsense.
Running with this idea, I went so far as to ask a friend who is working on his Ph.D. on this topic to ask for help. I want the scene to be as realistic as possible so it won't "rip the reader out of the story" as some authors describe it. I don't want anyone associated with the mental health field who would read it to stop and say, "What was she thinking when she wrote this?"
Well, anyway... he came over for dinner last night and we discussed this therapist character. I've been having a lot of trouble picturing him, so we were trying to figure out what type of psychiatrist he is. Sounds simple enough... yeah right! Everything that I "know" about this guy just didn't seem to fit with what a psychiatrist is. The night ended with me planning on just writing the scene and hoping for the best. Then I would send the draft to my friend and he'd tell me what changes I needed to make to make it realistic. And if that didn't work, he was going to stage a mock-therapy session with me pretending to be the character in question. Now while I can write from the perspective and personality of Casey, actually vocalizing and acting like her would have been difficult.
Well today, while researching the types and wording of possible questions that could appear in an initial visit with a therapist, I stumbled across something that made everything "click" in my head. I happened to scroll past a heading that read, "The differences between therapists and counselors," or something like that. It was at this point that I realized that my "therapist" isn't a therapist at all! He's a counselor! I read information on the role of a counselor and my guy fits it perfectly.
It even makes more sense in the grand scheme of things for him to be a counselor. This character works for a police academy in the story. It just makes more sense that a counselor would work in this setting than a psychiatrist. And a counselor probably wouldn't have any problems with giving advice during an initial visit because sometimes that's all they ever see of the person.
Now, right now I'd love to put my hand up in the good old girl scout salute and vow to never make assumptions about new characters ever again. To allow them to take whatever time and means necessary to introduce themselves to me so I avoid all of this confusion next time. While I'd love to say this... I know that it's not going to happen. Sure, it sounds good on paper (or the screen in this instance), but I know that I'll keep doing this. You know that I'll keep doing this. So I'll just save myself the trouble of making a post in a month starting off with, "You know a little bit ago when I said..."
So no, I won't promise to never ever do this again. But I will promise to always trust my gut feelings on my characters. I won't change them to fit some preconceived notion that I've created for them. I write character-driven stories. If I start ignoring my characters and try to force them to do things "my way" then I will lose what I think makes my stories good. I love the personal feelings that character-driven stories present. They seem so realistic and you're really able to connect with the characters on a personal level. This connection is an important thing for a book to possess in order to become one of my favorites and I hope that someday the fact that I write in this style will make my book(s) favorites for others.
Well, until I blog again!
Talk 2ya Later...
~Willow
Wow! I am tearing through chapters like crazy lately.
Yesterday I wrote up almost all of chapter 8, I just have the very beginning and a couple of small additions to add and it'll be done.
Today I woke up and wrote almost all of chapter 9! I have the very beginning to write on it too, hmmm... I wonder why I have this fear of starting a chapter at the beginning when I write... oh well..
I even got to write up an action scene in this chapter- 
Not that type of action! *shocked gasp* My characters just met each other... You! Go wash your filthy mind out with soap!
Back? Okay...
Anyway, since my main character is a police cadet there is going to be a criminal undercurrent going on throughout the book. I don't really describe most of the crimes, except through her hearing third-party descriptions of incidents if they're necessary to carry the plot along, but this crime was important. Not only does it happen to Casey, but it affects her emotionally for a while in the story.
I was so nervous about writing this incident. I think I do an all right job writing the sappy parts of the story, but I've never actually written out anything like this before. I guess my saving grace is that everything happens from Casey's perspective so I can get away with not knowing a lot of the specifics. She's really trapped in her thoughts, squeezing her eyes shut in fear during the most violent parts of the scene, so that helped out a lot too. I hope I did an okay job writing it, I guess I'll just have to wait until I hear from my reviewers.
I love seeing her react like this because it's pretty uncharacteristic for how you'd expect a police cadet to behave. But, after hearing her thoughts throughout the evening, it should make sense for her to act the way she does.
I feel so bad for the guy she is with during this time though. Her decision at the end of the chapter is really going to hurt him, and after what he did for her it'll hurt even worse. I just have to resign myself into moving on, knowing that this is all necessary... Without this early conflict, Casey wouldn't be able to grow emotionally the way that she needs to in order to face what's just around the corner...
I have a slight concern in how I wrote my characters behaving in chapter 8 as well, but I can't explain the problem without giving away plot details, grrr.... so...
But anyway, I'd say adding ~18 pages to the manuscript in two days isn't too shabby. I have a lot of new ideas that I'm going to add to a couple of short, early chapters that will really help set the stage for later stuff nicely too. I guess an anxious reviewer is better motivation than I thought!
Let's see, what else... Oh yeah, last night I found a wonderful set of articles written by an author who also happens to be a cop. She wrote them to show how many authors misrepresent the police in their works and offers examples of what it's really like. I found a couple of instances where I had made mistakes in terminology, so I'm really glad that I found these articles.
I still have a few questions about a couple of scenes that I've written though. If I can't find a good source online I'm considering sending an email to my local police station, asking if it would be possible to email some interview questions to an officer. I just want to double check some terminology and procedures that I want to write up accurately. The questions are basic enough though, that I think that I'll be able to find a reliable source online.
Well, I think I'll try and finish up chapter 8 and 9 this afternoon before we have some friends over for dinner later tonight. I swear this inspiration is just bubbling up inside of me! I'm at over 50,000 words now and I'm showing no sign of slowing down! In fact, everything seems to be speeding up!
Well, until I blog again,
I'll talk 2ya later...
~Willow
Well, as the title says, I'm feeling possessed right now. I've been writing up a storm the past few days, adding around 15 pages to my manuscript rough draft file.
I think this all came about starting Wednesday. One of my reviewers came over for dinner. We had worked together a couple of years ago and had recently just started catching up again. Well, she had read my blogs and kept asking about my book and I decided that I needed a good female perspective on the story, so I sent her the first chapter. She devoured it and immediately started asking for more. I ended up sending her the outlines for chapters 2-4 and the completed chapters 5-7 before she came over on Wednesday. I'm happy to say that I think I have her sufficiently hooked on the story. Well if all of the emails with the subtle "How's the book coming?" and "Anxiously waiting on the next chapter..." lines sprinkled throughout them are any indication that is...
But anyway, we spent a good portion of the evening talking about the story. Going over characters, the plot, looking at my collections of pictures and files... having a great time. And probably alienating my husband and his cousin who had come over to do laundry. They seemed to hide out in the kitchen while we sat, oblivious in the living room... oh well!
She had begun begging to know more about the story and where it was going, and I, feeling bad that I have so little of the first half of the book actually written out, made her a deal. Once she had read through a certain point, I would answer any questions she threw at me. Well, she came prepared on Wednesday, having read to that point and the chapter after. I mostly wanted to see her reaction once both of Casey's potential suitors had been introduced, to gauge which way the reader would initially lean. Well, she reacted to the whole story exactly how I had intended the reader to! Yay me!
We spent the next couple of hours with me explaining the whole story, all of the twists and turns, the ups and downs... it was really nice having a female to share this with. She definitely understood exactly where the characters were coming from. We eventually shifted to what was going on in our regular lives and had a great evening and dinner catching up.
Now, I had spent a good portion of Wednesday morning typing in nervous anticipation of hearing what she thought of the last chapters I had sent. Well, actually the night before as well.. I kinda, sorta stayed up until 5 a.m. typing up scenes... what can I say my little writing gremlin is a slave driver!
I then proceeded to wake up Thursday morning with an indescribable desire to get writing. And write is what I did... ALL DAY LONG! I think I took short breaks to eat those pesky meals and to make trips to the bathroom, but the rest of the day was spent typing.
I wrote up at 15 page scene-by-scene summary of the story to help me keep track of the storyline easier. It takes a little while to scroll through an ~180 page document to figure out when something happens. I'm going to use this new summary to determine where I want to add in elements of foreshadowing and to plot out the slow degradation of my villain's character. I want all of the signs to be subtle enough that the reader can explain them away, but in the end when they are revealed, I want the reader to smack themselves on the forehead and say, "Of course!"
I'll also need something like this when I get done and am ready to send it off to publishers. I'll need a chapter-by-chapter summary that's anywhere from 2-20 pages to send in with my query letters from what I've read so far. Now, I'll just have to update this file and put it in the correct format. Two birds.... One stone... Oh yeah!
I also wrote up most of the rest of another scene in the middle of the story. I have a small block of dialogue left to write for it, but it's nearly done.
Now the really fun part! I stayed up until around 3 a.m. last night reading various articles about writing. I decided that I wanted to write chapter 8 as it's been kind of in the back of my head for a day or two now and my new reviewer is dying to read what happens next.
I opened up a new document and copied over all of my notes and outlines for the chapter and read them over several times, hoping to plant the information in my subconscious and allow it to grow into a beautiful chapter over night. I think I wrote up about one page of early dialogue that had been brewing in my head, but then I left it. I left the document open on the screen in hopes that my writing gremlin would look it over during the night and went to bed. When I woke up this morning, there it was- the scene, nearly in its entirety, playing in my head. Have I mentioned how much I love my writing gremlin?
In between feeding, changing, and playing with my son I ended up writing up 12 pages for the chapter! I still have a phone conversation to write up for the beginning and the very end of the chapter to write up, but... 12 pages! I can't believe I wrote that much in 3 hours while doing everything else. I guess it helped that my son decided to eat his meals incredibly slowly today and that he's in one of those, "don't look at me when I'm playing and don't you dare come try and touch my toys," moods too.
I sent the chapter off to my anxious reviewer and am laughing at the thought of her working in her office today, staring at the computer and trying to force herself to work faster so she can let herself read it. I'm not selfishly using her to critique my story, I'm providing a motivation to get her work done quickly, lol! Really! ...that was believable, right? lol But really, I'm really glad that she, and all of my reviewers, are so wonderful to read over this story as I'm writing it. Your input is really invaluable. Thanks guys!
In a funny twist of fate, two of my other reviewers are coming over for dinner tomorrow night. Now to see what they think of the chapters they've received so far... It'll be interesting to get a male perspective of it as my husband doesn't want to read outlines and is patiently waiting until I can finish chapter 2 to read anything else. He'll sit and listen to me vocalize my thoughts on where the story is going, but doesn't want to read anything but fully written chapters. Go figure?
Well, I think it's time to do some research for the beginning of chapter 8. I have to figure out what type of car a certain character drives. I know what color it is, but have no clue what make/model/year it is. Then I have to decide how much of this information Casey would actually know by just looking at it. I also need to decide what they are wearing in this scene, it's actually important to what they're talking about... So, off to farm some pictures up..
Until I blog again, Talk 2ya later...
~Willow
I love writing my characters so much. They've become so vibrant, so life-like to me, I find myself almost believing that they could really be real and living out there somewhere.
Today, while writing an email to one of my reviewers, I found myself inspired to write an earlier scene in the book. I'm really happy about this because I've spent quite some time lately working on the last half of it. I was telling her that a character she mentioned was one of my top 5 favorites as well and that I hope she likes the others too, once she meets them in later chapters.
This got me thinking about how Casey is supposed to meet this character. Thinking about this, I suddenly could feel the pressure of a little writing gremlin perching himself on my shoulder. For the moment he was silent, with a very thoughtful look on his face. I decided to let him be and finished my email. He'd let me know when he was ready for me to write, no sense rushing him.
I put my son down for his nap and the scene started playing in my head. Well not the scene that I thought he was thinking about, but the one immediately before it. Just happy to be writing something in the first half of the book, I shrugged and started typing. I typed the last sentence of that scene and *POOF* he was gone. I can still feel him nearby though, maybe later tonight I'll be able to continue on with the next couple scenes as I'm still feeling inspired by them.
Now, when I was typing, I really wasn't thinking too deeply about deeper meaning in anything my characters were doing or saying, or that maybe I should be foreshadowing future events, but in re-reading it I was amazed. Amongst everything else going on, I had laid the first clues of what lies ahead for Casey and the man she falls for. Go subconscious mind!
Writing this scene was also fun because it contained a lot of dialogue between roommates, Casey and Heather. These characters couldn't be more different if they tried, and people often wonder how they are such good friends. But when you hear them talk to each other, in their sisterly banter, it's so obvious that they really are best friends. They pick on each other, they fight... but at the end of the day, they're friends. Being an only child, this is how I imagine older sisters treating each other. Guess I'll just have to wait until my reviewers get to this part of the story to see how believable their interactions are.
With this scene, I'm up to 160 pages now. I can't believe how much I've written since August. I'm having such a blast writing this that, at this point, I can't imagine how people are able to quit writing a book- to be able to give up. I've read that only 3% of books that are begun actually get finished. Doesn't everyone feel this amazing rush when writing? The indescribable drive to record their characters forever in print... The joy that comes just thinking about their story and where it's going... The intense sadness that comes when you aren't able to write...
I can't wait to finish this story and hear what people think about it. I can't describe it, but I have such a good feeling about the possibilities of it being published. I know the odds of an author having their first work published, but it doesn't affect my optimism for some reason, which is weird. I'm usually a worrier that, while typically optimistic, is able to dwell on all of the possible negative outcomes in a situation. I guess I'd say I'm a realist. I know the reality behind me getting this published isn't necessarily that great, but for some reason it doesn't bother me. Maybe I'm spending so much time living in fantasy worlds that I'm losing touch with reality? Who knows? All I know is that just finishing this story will be one of the proudest days of my life, up there with my wedding and the birth of my son.
***
Let's see, what else... I did some research on local writing groups today. I found one that meets once a month about twenty minutes from my house. They have a membership fee if you want a chance to be published in their yearly anthology or get other perks, but the meetings are free and open to the public. Better yet, the meetings are on Thursdays, a day that my husband always has off of work. Starting in January I think I'm going to check out the group as they don't hold meetings in December. If I like the group, I'll most likely officially join it too. Not only will this give me one night a month where I can get out of the house to interact with other people, but I'll also be able to connect with other local writers.
Looking at the group's schedule for the past year, it looks like they have various authors come and speak to the group, local English instructors come and give workshops, and they have three critique nights a year. So, not only can I network with other published authors, but I can also bring in my work and ideas and get their input too! I'm sold! Maybe some of them would be willing to do a manuscript swap once I finish this book. I give them my honest opinion of their work and they do the same for me. I can only hope!
In case it isn't obvious, I'm reveling in this whole writing thing. With everything I've done in the past in my jobs or in school, I've never felt so... alive, as cliche as that sounds.
***
A lot of people don't know this, but writing really has helped my mental health status. Shortly after the birth of my son I was diagnosed with post-pardum depression and put on medication, sent to a shrink- the whole she-bang. I quickly realized that the psychiatrist wasn't helping me any, so I stopped those sessions. I've been treated for depression before, when my father died, and therapy was a godsend then. This time, not so much.
I struggled with the depression for over a year before I felt strong enough to wean myself off of the Zoloft. I had a hard time transitioning to life without the meds and was about to call my doctor and ask them to re-prescribe them when I found writing again. I had written quite a bit in high school and junior college, but as my courses got more demanding, I slowly left it behind. But anyway, I started reading fan fiction. Not necessarily great literature, but it was free and some of it was actually pretty good. Slowly I began coming up with my own story ideas. I never actually took any of these ideas beyond a basic outline, but it was a starting point.
It began with me picking the underdog from various shows and creating a happily ever after for them. Then, slowly I noticed that my main characters weren't dependent on the constraints of their original creator's world anymore. Pretty soon my ideas were entirely my own, no longer using other people's characters or settings to tell my stories.
At some point during these months I started trying to write poetry again, as I had enjoyed doing that in high school. I dug out all my old journals and cringed at some of the stuff that I had written (so young and naive...). I did research on how to get back into writing, at this point mostly focusing on poetry and songs since I used to enjoy writing them so much before. I'll admit I wrote a few poems and a song or two during this time, but nothing great. It was fun, but it just didn't flow out of me like it used to.
Poetry felt more like work than I ever remembered it being, so I dug out my old short stories. I think I was maybe 10-14ish when I wrote these stories, so they're not great, but I remember how much I loved writing them. Being the avid researcher, I did research on how to write a good short story. What elements do writer's consider important for a successful story? At what point are short stories considered too long for that term anymore? etc.
Before I knew it, I found myself writing up outlines and synopses for various stories and characters. I still have these, even though they never made it past the outlining stage. They also seemed like they would be too long to be considered a short story. I researched novel writing, never thinking that I'd ever be able to (a) come up with an idea for a story that long or (b) have the discipline to see a project that large to its end. (I'm a true Gemini and get distracted easily...)
Then, while on vacation, it hit me. The idea that has grown to 160 pages and is still going strong. The idea that reintroduced me to my own inner writing gremlin. The characters and story that keep me up late at night and wake me up early in the morning, writing their story and not caring about the lost sleep.
I'm not sure where along this path that I completely overcame my depression, but I know that it's gone. Replaced by something so wonderful, so fulfilling, that I sincerely hope that I can keep writing like this the rest of my life. I can't imagine ever wanting to give up on this story or any of the others that keep popping into my head. My brain is so full of other ideas that I think have a lot of potential that at times I feel like I could burst. Every dream and daydream morphs itself into a full story right before my eyes. Right now I'm resigning myself to simply writing up outlines of these other stories that present themselves to me because I don't think I'm ready to try and write multiple stories simultaneously.
At this point in time I just want to finish Instinct, not because I'm tired of writing it, but so I can share it with others and move on to the next story. The relationships that I see forming between my characters are so touching to me, I just want to see if they affect others the same way. I guess, to make a long story short, I just want to write...
~Willow
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