I'm in mourning for those halcyon days when I could rush to the wp each monring and find out what'd happened to my protagonist overnight. What surprises she had in store for me, what strange and dark passages she'd taken while I slept.
Though I can still spend time with her, still wonder at her seductive ways and dark charms, there's never the rush of feeling, the wonder of what might occur. I have to maintain a blueprint by now, have to stick to the plan, the plot. There's no freedom in my fingers.
As much as I resisted writing a novel, I found much to love in it.
Will I ever find another love like my first one? Will anyone else ever allow me such entry into their soul? How do you let go? Please advise.
(For those who wonder, I have not gone off the pier. I just miss my summer mission).
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Ah, I know this feeling too well. I spent a year and a half with Felo and John, and though I haven't touched that file in five months now, and the thought of doing so makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit, sometimes I still catch one of them out of the corner of my eye, or I see something, maybe hear something that makes me think of them and then it catches me up short.
A while back my ex expressed the same sort of sentiment when she finished her book and was mourning "hearing from" her characters. At the time I thought she was a little nuts--how do you miss something/someone that never really existed?--but you don't get it until you're there yourself.
So I know it sounds strange to the "Muggles" but you do grow attached, maybe because you have to spend so much time in their heads do to do the thing justice.
And of course, ultimately, they are a part of you, projected. They become friends.
But think how nice it's going to be to see your girl on a bookstore shelf. To share her with others who will fall in love with her world too. And to know that you created that. Amazing.
I am so damn proud of you for sticking this out, and I am going to do my level best to do whatever I can to push prod or pull you through what comes next. Ah, publishing, that bitch.
I miss Felo and John too. How 'bout bringing them out to play again. Thanks sweetie!
Patti: Hmm... <<< Cueing B.B. King... "The thrill is gone....I'm free from your spell /And now that it's over/ All I can do is wish you well."
So, [in writing], when the romance ends the work begins?
To paraphrase that Metro-Detroit icon of construction, Mr Belvedere, you'll do good work.
John McAuley
Thanks, John. I hope it captures the essence Detroit as well as Mr. Belvedere did. When did he disappear?
"When did he disappear?"
I think the company is still around but I don't know if he is. But that damn phone number jingle will be with me even as I'm drooling in my gruel at the nursing home.. ".. Call TYler Eight Seven One Hundred.."
Maybe that's what I'll say instead of " Rosebud."
John McAuley
But it's not gone. Not by a long shot.
Now comes the rewrite.
But the rewrite has no magic in it. I say this as someone who likes rewriting normally but the surprises are gone.
I'll tell you what does it for me: childcare. No sooner do I get involved chasing the beasties around, then the story ideas, they start a'flowing. Offer to take Kevin for a weekend! ;)
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