Well, here I am. I finally made it. Most of you are
wondering just why this is a big deal and generally it wouldn’t be. But I have
been promising you all that I would start this column for a long, long time. I
guess some people think that being a writer is some sort of fantasy life.
Hmmm…interesting concept.
In a way, it sort of is, I’ll give you that much. After
all, writers do something different every day. Matter of fact, last week I was
writing a character journal. What’s a character journal? Fair question and one
that needs some attention obviously. Years ago, in some writers class that I
took, the instructor mentioned that if you wanted to know your character better
you needed to write their journal.
I had never tried this technique but for this particular
heroine I needed to do this. I needed to watch the girl group up and come into
her own by the time the novel I was writing about her started. And I really
didn’t know a thing about her. Now that wasn’t quite true. I knew a lot about
her, I just didn’t know the details and I wanted to know them. After all, a
writer needs to know their characters inside and out.
So I spent many nights, looking for references, finding
tidbits and doing the type of research that would help the project overall.
However, it didn’t help with the task at hand. And hence one of the fallacies
of a writing life. Writers are focused beings. We have to be to get from point
a to point b all on our own and within a reasonable timeframe. But what was I doing?
Anything but the writing needed to get this journal complete so I’d know my
latest character. And this is a disaster in many ways.
My husband and many of my friends are right. If I stayed
as focused on the actual writing as I did the research, I’d get twice as much
done. Don’t get me wrong, I write anywhere from 1000 to 5000 words a day
minimum but I’d love to be doing twice that much. See I get bored easy and it’s
the reason I have about five projects going at one time. Each of them is at a
different part and to be honest, you have to pity the stories where I see the
ending too soon as they may never get completed.
Yes, I have an idea file full of half-finished wonderful
stories that may never see the light of day because I got bored. See…writers get
bored…we have many of the foibles that we write about. Though maybe not in as
much abundance as our characters but enough that you know we are real, live
people with lives to live and places to go.
Until next week…
Lynn
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