Sunday, February 7, 2010

Where am I?

One of the things they don't tell you about writing a book is how easy it is to become lost in it. At about, oh maybe 150 pages, it starts to happen to me. I begin to forget where I left that character, where that bit of diologue is. I start to wish that I was the kind of writer that made outlines, timelines, something. I begin to think maybe I need a spread sheet.
It's scary to look at the page and wonder who wrote that and how it go there.
That is where I'm starting to be in Fall now. I just found a whole notebook of stuff that I'd forgotten belonged in the story. I should be a little freaked out, because it does seem like losing control. But I'm not. This happened with the last book, and now I can recognize it as the process I have to go through. I can't control the story I'm telling--that notebook full of scenes is proof of that. I don't know where I'm going, or where I'll end up, but that's okay. For me, it's the only way to write. Now that I've lived with the characters a while, I know them. Now I just have to figure out where to go with them.
Until then, I'm lost, but I have to remember that it's a good thing.

mart

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