In Between

So I've seen a few posts around about Totally Unfamous and the first messages from the website are beginning to trickle in. I've been getting good feedback but even as I posted today's new poems, I felt my heart squeeze as I read them, aching for this fictional girl. I wonder what it is that makes me like that. Why I cry at a good movie or book. Why my heart doesn't care to discern that these are pretend people, just stories.

I'm just glad I'm not the only one.

My writing process is one where I discover the characters and their stories as I go along. It's probably a little like sculpting might have been for those artists that took a huge hunk of marble and from it chipped a beautiful statue. The statue is inside the marble already, and the sculptor peels away those pieces that are not needed. I definitely start with something,usually a character, who I think about until they seem real, and I am compelled to let them tell their story. Then as I begin to write the story, I learn more and more as I go along. And here's a confession - I don't always know the ending. Oh, I have a vague idea of where I might be headed but there are always changes, shifts in the plot, that I never foresaw.

I know it sounds crazy to anyone who is not a novelist. As most of you who read this blog regularly know, I am in-between contracts, and have been for quite some time. I decided to write Totally Unfamous because frankly, I was going a little nuts without purpose in my writing. I am so glad that I did it, because I ended up adoring the story. I have another series going to a publishing board...next week, I believe...but since it's a co-author deal, it doesn't feel like it's really all mine. Which is why I have also started a new novel. It's the first time that I have tried working on two projects at once. Normally, I like to tackle each book all by itself. But these new characters, and their story, will not be quiet.

So this morning, I am blogging, feeling pulled by each story, unsure which one to devote my morning to. This is exactly why I am "one project" girl. It's like I have two kids and I want to spend time with each of them, get to know them better.

Decisions, decisions.