LaPalm Books

Last week had a very bumpy start to my work on the new novel, but by the end of the week it really began to come together. I have about two-thirds of the concept written and essentially know the rest. It’s just a matter of getting it down in type.

This part of writing is the absolute best and most frightening. I had the basic character and plot outline, and I was super excited to find the gaps filling in themselves much like they did with Still Life. That’s quite the relief as I was afraid it wouldn’t come to me, and I would be stuck with a great idea, a one page outline, and nothing more.

It’s an amazing feeling when the characters become people. I love how their wants, needs, actions, and struggles reveal themselves to me in the strangest of places and oddest of times. It can be when I’m half-awake in the earliest of mornings or during my son’s bath time. But regardless of how they appear, the joy and excitement is always the same. I become curious to figure out how it should be written and feel inspired to share their story.

It’s this part of writing that makes me want to do it over and over again. And truthfully, once this rough draft is done, the hard part will begin. It will be days and weeks and months of cross-referencing, double-checking, editing, rewriting, and second-guessing.

I really don’t want to do any of it. But I will.

Because I want to see how it ends, and they want someone to know their story.