Hot on the heels of the "moving on" post I thought I'd offer an update on my Works in Progress. While I haven't been as diligent in my writing as I would like, I have been working on multiple projects.
WIP 1
Is actually my 2nd novel (The Reclamation of Karel Benekov) which I've written about here before. I'm just over 67,000 words along with the last 1/4 of the book to go. I'm anticipating a final word count in the 90s. I have to admit that I'm not thrilled with the structure of the novel, too linear in progression, which slows down the pace dramatically, but this is still the first draft so there will not be any starting over until I have finished getting the "story" out at least. I'm hoping I can get the structure right more quickly than I did with the 1st novel, which took upwards of 6 or 7 completely different attempts before finding the one that truly told the story properly. I feel that I have a better handle on this book (experience does help) and a better understanding of the main character, so I should be able to hit it right sooner rather than later.
WIP 2
3rd novel (The Last Messiah). This is another book I'm working on, though not as diligently as the other one. The story actually came from my partner, Carlos. He wasn't too interested in my 1st book. Literary Fiction bores him, which is fine. I know it's not for everyone. He's very much into the paranormal writing genre as is the rest of the world, it seems. One night in bed he inform me that in order for me to actually sell books I need to write something more interesting and, yes, trendy. He proceeded to tell me his idea of the coming of the "Last Messiah." While paranormal writing isn't quite the type of book I like the story intrigued me enough for me to start tinkering with it. I have a "thing" about religion, a fascination that borders on obsession and I thought: "what the hell, give it a shot." I'm only about 11,000 words into (it requires quite a bit of research into religion and how to write police procedurals (oh, it starts out as your run of the mill police procedural and then turns paranormal)) but I actually like it very much and it's a nice change of pace from when I get bored with writing the other book.
WIP 3
Stage Play (Pinched). Quite a few years ago, I read a non-fiction book entitled Sex-Crime Panic: A Journey to the Paranoid Heart of the 1950s by Neil Miller, which told of a post-child murder panic that took hold of parts of Iowa back in the 1950s. As the police couldn't find the actual murderer, or murderers, of two children, they sought to appease public fears by rounding up "sexual deviates", which mainly consisted of homosexuals. A group of these men were committed to the mental hospital for an indefinite period of time in hopes that the state could cure them.
I've always thought this would make an interesting (and still timely) stage play, so I'm working on an adaptation.
WIP 4
Screenplay (Immortality, Inc.). Okay, I've had this in the works for years (at least 10) and think I should just freaking write the damned thing! Again, this is for Carlos as it deals with vampires. At first I thought it would be a book but it's just so terribly visual that I decided to switch it to a movie instead. I've actually got most, if not all, of the research done on this, complete with character bios (full histories! I started this back when I still did such things) and a point-by-point plot outline so now it's just a matter of writing it. I just started revisiting this project in the past couple of days so I'm going to try to stoke the embers here and see what happens.
And that's it. That's what I'm working on, here and there, keeping myself entrenched in the world of words and continuing to move forward. I think I'm like a lot of writers who keep a few projects going at the same time in order to keep the mind active and the writing interesting. Often, if I only concentrate on one piece of writing, it starts to bore me and then the writing becomes stale. If I switch back and forth, especially if the projects vary widely in genre and style, the writing stays fresh and lively.
I'll try to get some more in depth posts regarding each project here in the near future.
Showing posts with label Second Novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Second Novel. Show all posts
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
WIP: Chapter One
Thought I'd post Chapter One of my work in progress. Every once in a while I like to see my work outside of its normal habitat of MS word, see it in a different setting, a different light. One of the things I love about the Amazon Kindle is the ability to send documents to it to read. I've sent my first book there before and was amazed at how different the book looked and felt as I read it. While the Kindle isn't a "book," per se, there is a concreteness about it that merely reading the work on my laptop doesn't have. This is the first step outside of the comfort zone: letting others read the work.
The Reclamation of Karel Benakov: Chapter One
“This is who you are now,” he hands me the papers. We stand outside the car, his family, inside, not watching us. The wife stares out the passenger-side window in the opposite direction. I can’t see but can picture her face: tight and pinking with anger. The son, head bowed, reads a book as if it were any other outing to the country that they used to take before, long before. The daughter feigns sleep. He has stopped at a large stone building outside the town we had just passed through. I do not know the name of the town. He faces the building. I face him.
I stare at the papers. At the name scribbled in his impatient handwriting.
“That is who you are.”
Before I can speak he is returning to the car, its engine rumbling, rattling, anxious to continue, to get back on the road. I take a step forward but he drives away. I watch, waiting for him to stop, to change his mind, take me with him but he doesn’t. In the side mirror I see his face, eyes wide and set on the narrow dirt road as if it were extremely treacherous and he were in danger of plunging off the side of a cliff instead of driving on an unpaved country road. He doesn’t look back. Only the son does, one quick glance up from his book followed by his tongue sticking out at me. Victorious at last.
I wait until the car has finished its path down the dirt driveway, onto the road and out of sight. I look at the papers again, crunch them in my fist and stuff them in my coat pocket. With a deep breath, I kneel, scoop up a handful of dirt and dust and smear it on my face, then dust my coat and muddy my pant legs. With my satchel in hand, I turn to the building.
As I enter, not bothering to knock because it doesn’t strike me as a place, a door on which one knocks, the smell strikes me first and foremost, moldy, moist air, stale, as if the outside has not been allowed to enter the premises for months or maybe even years. After the crispness of the country air, my lungs seize and choke from this thickness. I stand breathing in the entryway, small and sparse, with only a wooden chair pushed against the right wall. The door closes behind me with an understanding thud and a click, leaving the light outside. I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. In the absence of clear sight, I hear noises, far off, muffled by distance and walls, laughter and childish squeals, people at play, sounds that belied the ominous dark in which I stand, the silent foyer closing in on me. But still I don’t move, don’t seek the voices. I stay in that darkness. Setting my satchel down, I sit in the lone chair, its wooden parts creak, even under my slim weight, and echo in the hollowed-out room. The white walls ghost in the paltry light sneaking in around the cracks of the door frame and from the other rooms to which the entryway leads. The walls are dingy, ugly, and bare, not a picture or mirror interrupting their whiteness, save for one wooden crucifix stationed above the doorway. The other rooms, which I can not see except for their entrances, wait for me on either side of the end of the entryway. Further beyond them, a staircase climbs upward to more unknown areas.
I grip the handle of my satchel and bring it up to my lap. I look at the door from which I had entered, at the light glowing at its edges. My stomach tight to the point of pained. My jaw the same. Leave and go where? I didn’t know where I was, where he had brought me. Germany, but other than that, not a clue.
I stand, the chair scraping at the wood floor as if it too wanted to get away. I walk toward the other rooms.
The first, on the left, is as empty of people as the foyer, which I had suspected, the noises, the laughter and occasional squeals that still came were too far off, but there is light and furniture, old and beaten but comfortable looking. Couches, three of them, positioned in a U-shape in the center of the room, and numerous chairs of all kinds: wooden ones like the one in the entryway, upholstered ones with a mix-match of fabrics, stools and ottomans, scattered, somewhat haphazardly, but all facing the large fireplace on the wall to my right as I stand in the doorway. There is burnt wood in the gaping mouth of the fireplace and, walking over, I place my hand inside, letting it hover, feeling the slight heat still emanating from within.
In the second room, much larger and longer than the first, I find rows of tables and chairs, a dining area. Also empty. I wander in. The light here is brighter, shining through the curtain-less windows. I look outside from where I had come. The road beyond the grounds of the house are empty too. I knew they would be but, of course, I hoped they wouldn’t. Hoped he had come back and was waiting for me, despite the wife.
Turning, I walk to a door at the back corner of the room. Even before I encase the knob with my thin hand, I realize the voices are closer, though still just incoherent bursts. Opening the door, I step into a kitchen, also empty save for the lingering odor of prepared foods: breads, gruel, maybe eggs. I take a deep breath, yes, eggs, and sausages. My stomach aches for sausages. How many mornings had I stood outside his house, chopping their wood or washing their clothes, while the wife prepared breakfast for her family. How many times did the aroma of sausages breathe out of the cracked window in heated clouds that hovered over my work. She opened the windows on purpose, knowing. How many mornings did I sit outside in the freezing cold gnashing on molded bread and equally molded cheese while they sat at the table feasting on sausages. He had tried to sneak some out to me in the beginning but the wife found out and beat me. I told him it was worth it but he couldn’t see me like that, he said, so he wouldn’t try again because she would know. She took meticulous inventory of their food.
I stand, weary and wavering within the aromas that inhabit the kitchen. I am alone. I could easily find some food and take it away with me. They would never know I had even been there. They wouldn’t look for me or report me. I didn’t exist to them. Fill my satchel with breads and eggs and meats to last for days. A peal of laughter reminds me I am not entirely alone. Outside the windows of the kitchen, I can finally see the children, the ones who’d been laughing and squealing. They are running around the yard, playing, oblivious to me in their kitchen. A woman stands watch, on the perimeter of their play. A tall woman, large but not fat. Very German, I think to myself, in her stance, her strength and poise, the set of her jaw and the fold of her arms. She looks stern but the children don’t seem to be afraid of her, running about her in circles, flouncing the hem of her gray dress as they whirl past in their games.
In an instant, she pivots her head toward the windows, toward the kitchen, to me standing there. I think I should run but don’t. I am not scared. I don’t care that she’s caught me.
She says something to the children, who barely acknowledge her words, and then she walks across the yard to the door leading to the kitchen. Once she inside, she stops in the entryway. The voices from where she had come were louder, clearer, more excited. We looked at each other for a moment before she spoke, “Was ist das?” Her voice wasn’t angry or as stern as she looked. It was merely a question.
I pulled the papers out of my pocket, holding them out to her.
Moving to me, she received the papers, eyes slightly narrowed as she regarded me. She read the papers quickly then looked at me again. “You are Charles Werden?”
It took me a moment to decipher the name. I blinked once, twice, then spoke, “Yes, I am Charles Werden.”
The Reclamation of Karel Benakov: Chapter One
“This is who you are now,” he hands me the papers. We stand outside the car, his family, inside, not watching us. The wife stares out the passenger-side window in the opposite direction. I can’t see but can picture her face: tight and pinking with anger. The son, head bowed, reads a book as if it were any other outing to the country that they used to take before, long before. The daughter feigns sleep. He has stopped at a large stone building outside the town we had just passed through. I do not know the name of the town. He faces the building. I face him.
I stare at the papers. At the name scribbled in his impatient handwriting.
“That is who you are.”
Before I can speak he is returning to the car, its engine rumbling, rattling, anxious to continue, to get back on the road. I take a step forward but he drives away. I watch, waiting for him to stop, to change his mind, take me with him but he doesn’t. In the side mirror I see his face, eyes wide and set on the narrow dirt road as if it were extremely treacherous and he were in danger of plunging off the side of a cliff instead of driving on an unpaved country road. He doesn’t look back. Only the son does, one quick glance up from his book followed by his tongue sticking out at me. Victorious at last.
I wait until the car has finished its path down the dirt driveway, onto the road and out of sight. I look at the papers again, crunch them in my fist and stuff them in my coat pocket. With a deep breath, I kneel, scoop up a handful of dirt and dust and smear it on my face, then dust my coat and muddy my pant legs. With my satchel in hand, I turn to the building.
As I enter, not bothering to knock because it doesn’t strike me as a place, a door on which one knocks, the smell strikes me first and foremost, moldy, moist air, stale, as if the outside has not been allowed to enter the premises for months or maybe even years. After the crispness of the country air, my lungs seize and choke from this thickness. I stand breathing in the entryway, small and sparse, with only a wooden chair pushed against the right wall. The door closes behind me with an understanding thud and a click, leaving the light outside. I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. In the absence of clear sight, I hear noises, far off, muffled by distance and walls, laughter and childish squeals, people at play, sounds that belied the ominous dark in which I stand, the silent foyer closing in on me. But still I don’t move, don’t seek the voices. I stay in that darkness. Setting my satchel down, I sit in the lone chair, its wooden parts creak, even under my slim weight, and echo in the hollowed-out room. The white walls ghost in the paltry light sneaking in around the cracks of the door frame and from the other rooms to which the entryway leads. The walls are dingy, ugly, and bare, not a picture or mirror interrupting their whiteness, save for one wooden crucifix stationed above the doorway. The other rooms, which I can not see except for their entrances, wait for me on either side of the end of the entryway. Further beyond them, a staircase climbs upward to more unknown areas.
I grip the handle of my satchel and bring it up to my lap. I look at the door from which I had entered, at the light glowing at its edges. My stomach tight to the point of pained. My jaw the same. Leave and go where? I didn’t know where I was, where he had brought me. Germany, but other than that, not a clue.
I stand, the chair scraping at the wood floor as if it too wanted to get away. I walk toward the other rooms.
The first, on the left, is as empty of people as the foyer, which I had suspected, the noises, the laughter and occasional squeals that still came were too far off, but there is light and furniture, old and beaten but comfortable looking. Couches, three of them, positioned in a U-shape in the center of the room, and numerous chairs of all kinds: wooden ones like the one in the entryway, upholstered ones with a mix-match of fabrics, stools and ottomans, scattered, somewhat haphazardly, but all facing the large fireplace on the wall to my right as I stand in the doorway. There is burnt wood in the gaping mouth of the fireplace and, walking over, I place my hand inside, letting it hover, feeling the slight heat still emanating from within.
In the second room, much larger and longer than the first, I find rows of tables and chairs, a dining area. Also empty. I wander in. The light here is brighter, shining through the curtain-less windows. I look outside from where I had come. The road beyond the grounds of the house are empty too. I knew they would be but, of course, I hoped they wouldn’t. Hoped he had come back and was waiting for me, despite the wife.
Turning, I walk to a door at the back corner of the room. Even before I encase the knob with my thin hand, I realize the voices are closer, though still just incoherent bursts. Opening the door, I step into a kitchen, also empty save for the lingering odor of prepared foods: breads, gruel, maybe eggs. I take a deep breath, yes, eggs, and sausages. My stomach aches for sausages. How many mornings had I stood outside his house, chopping their wood or washing their clothes, while the wife prepared breakfast for her family. How many times did the aroma of sausages breathe out of the cracked window in heated clouds that hovered over my work. She opened the windows on purpose, knowing. How many mornings did I sit outside in the freezing cold gnashing on molded bread and equally molded cheese while they sat at the table feasting on sausages. He had tried to sneak some out to me in the beginning but the wife found out and beat me. I told him it was worth it but he couldn’t see me like that, he said, so he wouldn’t try again because she would know. She took meticulous inventory of their food.
I stand, weary and wavering within the aromas that inhabit the kitchen. I am alone. I could easily find some food and take it away with me. They would never know I had even been there. They wouldn’t look for me or report me. I didn’t exist to them. Fill my satchel with breads and eggs and meats to last for days. A peal of laughter reminds me I am not entirely alone. Outside the windows of the kitchen, I can finally see the children, the ones who’d been laughing and squealing. They are running around the yard, playing, oblivious to me in their kitchen. A woman stands watch, on the perimeter of their play. A tall woman, large but not fat. Very German, I think to myself, in her stance, her strength and poise, the set of her jaw and the fold of her arms. She looks stern but the children don’t seem to be afraid of her, running about her in circles, flouncing the hem of her gray dress as they whirl past in their games.
In an instant, she pivots her head toward the windows, toward the kitchen, to me standing there. I think I should run but don’t. I am not scared. I don’t care that she’s caught me.
She says something to the children, who barely acknowledge her words, and then she walks across the yard to the door leading to the kitchen. Once she inside, she stops in the entryway. The voices from where she had come were louder, clearer, more excited. We looked at each other for a moment before she spoke, “Was ist das?” Her voice wasn’t angry or as stern as she looked. It was merely a question.
I pulled the papers out of my pocket, holding them out to her.
Moving to me, she received the papers, eyes slightly narrowed as she regarded me. She read the papers quickly then looked at me again. “You are Charles Werden?”
It took me a moment to decipher the name. I blinked once, twice, then spoke, “Yes, I am Charles Werden.”
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Hearing Voices
Quick breakdown of my writing process:
A character will come first. A "person" with a story. Not fully, usually just a ghost of a person in search of their corporeal existence, which is what I'm supposed to give them: flesh and story. I have to immediately get words on the screen in order to make the characters real for me, even if it's only preliminary sketchings. And once I have that down, I can start learning about and building their world: backstory, family, friends, work, play, dilemmas, etc. I tend to write and do research at the same time. A lot of times, these bits and pieces of flesh will come to me just before I fall asleep. It's some of the best writing time for me. And surprisingly, I tend to remember it all the next day. It invigorates me to get to the computer first thing in the morning, to get it all down, to continue their journey from imagination to print. May not be the ideal process but it's the one that works for me.
So, as many of you know, I've been working on my first novel, On the Edge of Someplace Else, for quite awhile now (diligently for 2 years, but I've been living with the story and the characters for over 10 years now!). Spending so much time with these characters, thinking about them and how to tell their stories, has been an all-consuming process. Not a day or night has passed that they didn't have something to say: you need to change this, Jeff; um, since you have so-and-so doing this, then I can't do that; remember you changed my age in the beginning so you have to change it in the middle too; etc, etc. It's been endless. Until the other night.
August 4, 2009, I finished the fifth version (in 2 years) of my novel. Working off of agent and friends' feedback, I reworked the book then edited it again. Once that was done, I said: this is it! I can't look at this anymore. I need to move on. But I've said that before, after each version. Yet the characters would still come to me at night, requesting and demanding changes, revealing new twists or turns or secrets I didn't know they had, introducing me to knew characters I didn't know were vital to their stories. And then I'd have to go back.
But this time I forced myself to move on. I started work on the second novel, working title: The Reclamation of Karel Benakov. As usual, the getting-going was slow work, with much research to be done (especially this one, which is a good deal out of my inherent knowledge zone) and much backstory to create. It can be fun, but hard work and lonely. You don't want to discuss it too much with anyone else having such paltry information with which to answer the inevitable questions, so you keep to yourself. So, I slogged away, writing here and there, adding this and that to the characters lives and troubles. Slow going. And then the other night, as I was laying in bed, these new characters started pushing themselves into my consciousness, mainly Charles and Wallace, though Father Tony has had a few things to add. They all started revealing themselves and their stories and their lives. I was confused for a moment because I've been so used to Jenny and Brian and Mr. Barnes and the other residents of Ashmoore, Oklahoma coming to visit and talk, but they stayed silent. But the confusion dissipated pretty quickly, and I started to listen.
And since then, Charles has come to my thoughts every night now. I realized yesterday, when I "tried" to think about the first novel, about the characters, nothing new came. According to them, they're done, they've said all they needed to say. The relief that washed over me was nothing short of cleansing. I could officially move on, officially welcome Charles and Wallace and Berthold and all of their family and friends into my bed, my mind, and my life with no qualms or worries. It's been an amazing transitioning. I highly recommend it.
Jeff
A character will come first. A "person" with a story. Not fully, usually just a ghost of a person in search of their corporeal existence, which is what I'm supposed to give them: flesh and story. I have to immediately get words on the screen in order to make the characters real for me, even if it's only preliminary sketchings. And once I have that down, I can start learning about and building their world: backstory, family, friends, work, play, dilemmas, etc. I tend to write and do research at the same time. A lot of times, these bits and pieces of flesh will come to me just before I fall asleep. It's some of the best writing time for me. And surprisingly, I tend to remember it all the next day. It invigorates me to get to the computer first thing in the morning, to get it all down, to continue their journey from imagination to print. May not be the ideal process but it's the one that works for me.
So, as many of you know, I've been working on my first novel, On the Edge of Someplace Else, for quite awhile now (diligently for 2 years, but I've been living with the story and the characters for over 10 years now!). Spending so much time with these characters, thinking about them and how to tell their stories, has been an all-consuming process. Not a day or night has passed that they didn't have something to say: you need to change this, Jeff; um, since you have so-and-so doing this, then I can't do that; remember you changed my age in the beginning so you have to change it in the middle too; etc, etc. It's been endless. Until the other night.
August 4, 2009, I finished the fifth version (in 2 years) of my novel. Working off of agent and friends' feedback, I reworked the book then edited it again. Once that was done, I said: this is it! I can't look at this anymore. I need to move on. But I've said that before, after each version. Yet the characters would still come to me at night, requesting and demanding changes, revealing new twists or turns or secrets I didn't know they had, introducing me to knew characters I didn't know were vital to their stories. And then I'd have to go back.
But this time I forced myself to move on. I started work on the second novel, working title: The Reclamation of Karel Benakov. As usual, the getting-going was slow work, with much research to be done (especially this one, which is a good deal out of my inherent knowledge zone) and much backstory to create. It can be fun, but hard work and lonely. You don't want to discuss it too much with anyone else having such paltry information with which to answer the inevitable questions, so you keep to yourself. So, I slogged away, writing here and there, adding this and that to the characters lives and troubles. Slow going. And then the other night, as I was laying in bed, these new characters started pushing themselves into my consciousness, mainly Charles and Wallace, though Father Tony has had a few things to add. They all started revealing themselves and their stories and their lives. I was confused for a moment because I've been so used to Jenny and Brian and Mr. Barnes and the other residents of Ashmoore, Oklahoma coming to visit and talk, but they stayed silent. But the confusion dissipated pretty quickly, and I started to listen.
And since then, Charles has come to my thoughts every night now. I realized yesterday, when I "tried" to think about the first novel, about the characters, nothing new came. According to them, they're done, they've said all they needed to say. The relief that washed over me was nothing short of cleansing. I could officially move on, officially welcome Charles and Wallace and Berthold and all of their family and friends into my bed, my mind, and my life with no qualms or worries. It's been an amazing transitioning. I highly recommend it.
Jeff
Friday, June 5, 2009
Moving On
As stated in the summary of this blog, there is a lot of waiting in the process of seeking an agent and a publisher, and I have entered into one of those waiting periods. As it stands, eight agents have my manuscript for review (5 have partials and 3 have the full manuscript) and I am at their leisure, so to speak. With so many questions unanswered, I have placed a moratorium on the query process as I don't know if I could take adding to that list just yet (assuming that other agents would request more materials as well). So, with the book finished (I have also placed a moratorium on revision for the time being) and the query process at a halt, the only thing for me to do is to move on.
While I know it's the best thing for me to do right now, it's also a hard thing for me to do. The act of moving on means I have to stop thinking about my novel, On the Edge of Someplace Else. I have to stop thinking about these characters that I've lived with for more than three years (in some cases over eight years). I have to stop thinking about this town that I've created, that exists merely because I wrote it into existence. I have to stop worrying about their future: will they be seen and understood by others, will their story be told? I have to stop because it's time to move on to new characters, new towns, new stories.
The process by which I write starts with one character first. With the first novel, it actually began with Brian, though initially he was much younger. The rape of Jenny Wade was always the catalyst but originally she wasn't even going to be in the book, it was all about Brian and his observations about the town in which he lived as they dealt with the events created by this act of violence. As I, via Brian, began to move through the town, I began to meet the people and hear their stories. Most often, I meet my characters at night, after I've gone to bed but before I've fallen asleep. They sit and tell me their life stories and I listen. I don't write anything down because I don't want to hinder them and somehow I retain what they've told me until the next morning, until I can get to the laptop and record what I've learned. Each character has revealed themselves to me in this way. And this is how the book was written, one character at a time who reveals how they intersect with the other characters.
But since their stories have been told, they don't come to me anymore. They've told all they needed to tell me. I've recorded all they've wanted to say.
But now there are new people coming into my bedroom at night, strangers with whom I've yet to feel comfortable, though I'm warming to them. They have their stories and lives that they need to unburden, which they're doing, slowly but surely. Stories that are vastly different than the ones that came from the residents of Ashmoore, Oklahoma. These people come from far away places like Prague and Brazil and New York, and from far away times that I know little about. And, while their stories are fascinating to me, I'm not sure I'm the right person to relate them, yet. There is so much for me to learn about them. And I'm trying to listen carefully, trying to focus my attention on them and not look backward at the other, more comfortable characters. But it's hard.
It's hard to move on, but I have to in order to keep progressing as a writer, a storyteller. While the creative process of a new story, and the characters that inhabit that story, is one of the most exciting periods in writing, it's also the scariest because the writer must enter unknown territory and encounter unknown people. But it has to be done, so that's what I'm doing, if only slightly reluctantly. I am moving on to new worlds and hope that one day soon it will be a world in which I feel comfortable and eager to tell you about.
While I know it's the best thing for me to do right now, it's also a hard thing for me to do. The act of moving on means I have to stop thinking about my novel, On the Edge of Someplace Else. I have to stop thinking about these characters that I've lived with for more than three years (in some cases over eight years). I have to stop thinking about this town that I've created, that exists merely because I wrote it into existence. I have to stop worrying about their future: will they be seen and understood by others, will their story be told? I have to stop because it's time to move on to new characters, new towns, new stories.
The process by which I write starts with one character first. With the first novel, it actually began with Brian, though initially he was much younger. The rape of Jenny Wade was always the catalyst but originally she wasn't even going to be in the book, it was all about Brian and his observations about the town in which he lived as they dealt with the events created by this act of violence. As I, via Brian, began to move through the town, I began to meet the people and hear their stories. Most often, I meet my characters at night, after I've gone to bed but before I've fallen asleep. They sit and tell me their life stories and I listen. I don't write anything down because I don't want to hinder them and somehow I retain what they've told me until the next morning, until I can get to the laptop and record what I've learned. Each character has revealed themselves to me in this way. And this is how the book was written, one character at a time who reveals how they intersect with the other characters.
But since their stories have been told, they don't come to me anymore. They've told all they needed to tell me. I've recorded all they've wanted to say.
But now there are new people coming into my bedroom at night, strangers with whom I've yet to feel comfortable, though I'm warming to them. They have their stories and lives that they need to unburden, which they're doing, slowly but surely. Stories that are vastly different than the ones that came from the residents of Ashmoore, Oklahoma. These people come from far away places like Prague and Brazil and New York, and from far away times that I know little about. And, while their stories are fascinating to me, I'm not sure I'm the right person to relate them, yet. There is so much for me to learn about them. And I'm trying to listen carefully, trying to focus my attention on them and not look backward at the other, more comfortable characters. But it's hard.
It's hard to move on, but I have to in order to keep progressing as a writer, a storyteller. While the creative process of a new story, and the characters that inhabit that story, is one of the most exciting periods in writing, it's also the scariest because the writer must enter unknown territory and encounter unknown people. But it has to be done, so that's what I'm doing, if only slightly reluctantly. I am moving on to new worlds and hope that one day soon it will be a world in which I feel comfortable and eager to tell you about.
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