Back in the saddle again
Sunday, January 30, 2011
I won't lie; the last few months of 2010 were really hard on me. You know, the fame, the fortune, the Rocky Horror episode of Glee...
There's a lot to be said about making things hard for your characters when you write a novel. What people forgot to say was that sometimes, when you're really into your story, you might take it personally. Feeling crushed when the hero does something completely unheroic. Wanting to smack the heroine upside the head when she does something really, really dumb -- but only because you know what's going to happen to her next. Le sigh.
After swimming in the deep end of revisions, I was able to spend most of January filling the well. With mini cupcakes and salted licorice (not at the same time, mind you, that would be gross).
It's funny how things work out. Once I started submitting my latest novel, I peeked into my Shiny New Idea box -- the box where I stick all those ideas that come out to distract me when I'm about to make a breakthrough or complete something incredibly hard, such as a semicolon placement. ;)
So I looked inside. Called out hello a few times and everything. A few of the ideas waved at me, but they were in an intense game of Texas Hold 'Em. So I gave them some space and wrote a magazine article or two. Then some ad copy.
A week later, I popped open the lid again.
BAM! An idea shot out of the box so fast I got a paper cut on my forehead.
The story has changed about a gazillion times since I picked the paper up off the floor, but I haven't had this much fun since, you know, when I started writing that last book. ;)
We'll see how I feel when I get to the middle.
There's a lot to be said about making things hard for your characters when you write a novel. What people forgot to say was that sometimes, when you're really into your story, you might take it personally. Feeling crushed when the hero does something completely unheroic. Wanting to smack the heroine upside the head when she does something really, really dumb -- but only because you know what's going to happen to her next. Le sigh.
After swimming in the deep end of revisions, I was able to spend most of January filling the well. With mini cupcakes and salted licorice (not at the same time, mind you, that would be gross).
It's funny how things work out. Once I started submitting my latest novel, I peeked into my Shiny New Idea box -- the box where I stick all those ideas that come out to distract me when I'm about to make a breakthrough or complete something incredibly hard, such as a semicolon placement. ;)
So I looked inside. Called out hello a few times and everything. A few of the ideas waved at me, but they were in an intense game of Texas Hold 'Em. So I gave them some space and wrote a magazine article or two. Then some ad copy.
A week later, I popped open the lid again.
BAM! An idea shot out of the box so fast I got a paper cut on my forehead.
The story has changed about a gazillion times since I picked the paper up off the floor, but I haven't had this much fun since, you know, when I started writing that last book. ;)
We'll see how I feel when I get to the middle.
posted by Bonnie Staring at 11:33 PM
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