It’s been a tough week for me at the Riskies. First I had to stave off the claims of canine ancestry — folks, this is not the blog where I talk about werewolves for crying out loud. Unless they’re hot Regency werewolves and that’s not what today’s post is about. Everyone else got cool ancestors and I get . . . a dog? Then Risky Janet implied in a comment that I’m not housebroken. Well, if no one Googled me before inviting me to join the Riskies, whose fault is that?
I’ve been working on The Next Historical and I keep forgetting how much I love/hate the early part of novel writing. Nothing sucks yet because I haven’t written it. The future is bright and shiny. THIS book will rock! It will be easy, I know exactly what’s going to happen. Yay!
And then I start writing and my hero and heroine typically spend an inordinate amount of time pretending they’re in different novels. I have to be very careful not to write too far ahead of myself because until the hero and heroine agree to be in the same book, I’ll just have to delete those scenes.
And the writing, oh, the writing is thin and weak and there’s either not enough dialogue which means there’s way too much boring narrative or there’s too much dialogue and no details. They’re all just talking heads floating around bumping into random things.
I end up freaking out over being behind on my word count and getting hives, and looking for anything that’s more fun than writing, which, lucky me, is just about everything.
Invariably, as I’m slogging through the early bits, deleting crap, trying to find the emotional core of the two characters, I’ll write a scene where I go, ooh. That’s it. And then my hero and heroine are in the same book in that scene and I adjust everywhere else and then I get to worry more about plot.
It doesn’t matter how detailed a synopsis I wrote– and I can tell you that the synopsis for this story is long out the window but for the hero and heroine’s names– until I get the characters on the page in actual writing I don’t know what the story will be about.
In happy news, I’m about to write the doorknob scene.
But I leave you with this, Werewolf-news.com
Because Janet is right. I’m not housebroken.
LOL on the characters thinking they’re in separate stories. I have had that happen too and sometimes realize that’s where they belong. Perfectly good characters, not right for each other!
And I don’t stick closely to synopses either. For me, they’re like using a map to get someplace you haven’t been before. Sometimes a bridge is out and you have to detour and sometimes you just see something intriguing down what you thought was a side road. 🙂
OMG. After reading this I left my WIP and went and ate a giant bowl of chocolate pudding. You captured the glamour and romance of writing perfectly.
What was it Jane Austen said? “When I do not feel like writing I must write until I do.”
Easy for her to say. Of course she didn’t have such convenient access to CHOCOLATE, did she?
Carolyn,
I am so sorry I started out your week poorly! It is a dog’s life, after all. And I think the werewolf connection explains it all.
Writing is such a bitch. Good thing we love it, though.
Ooh, I do love those scenes that come along as a “gift” just when I need them! I often feel like I’m floundering around, looking for my characters, trying to make them do what I want while they wander off somewhere, then–bam. I remember why I write in the first place. Thanks for the timely reminder. 🙂