All alone. Not me, the heroine of my
current WIP (work-in-progress). She’s married, lives with her husband and his
mother in a small town where everybody knows her name. But she is alone. She
feels lonely and is looking for a way to escape. For now my working title is “Dreamwalker”,
I have to wait and see what the final title will be.
I've been blessed with my life
since, even when I might have been at odds with a person or two around me, I've never experienced such total isolation, I have never felt the desolation that
my heroine, Annie, feels. So I am trying to get into her head and understand
the sadness and the frustration.
The story is a Paranormal, a first
for me, I've never written in this style before. I am not sure WHAT kind of
paranormal will this be, will it be a Paranormal Romance, Paranormal Thriller
or what. But I am starting to get into the heads of my characters little by
little and I am finding they are writing their own story. And this is a good
thing, it’s the way I write.
Several times I've been surprised by
some of the choices and actions my characters have made. In His Lucky Charm I
never expected the heroine’s cousin to be such a “bad boy” who was still
mourning the loss of his high school love. I definitely did not expect Paige to
bolt in Bartlett’s Rule when Lon was just doing his best to protect her. And it
really surprised the heck out of me when Sudah turned her back on Matt in
Hyphema and blamed him for her cousin’s death.
I allow my characters to come to
life and that is what I am doing now with Annie, Dave, Scott and Dianne (be
warned, the names may change before I finish if the characters decide they don’t
like the names I chose for them). They tend to become real and yes, like many
writers experience, they talk to me and tell me what makes them happy or sad,
or why they want their life to be different. Sometimes I play the role of a
stern, lecturing parent to try to get them back on the right track, or at least
the concept I had of them. Sometimes I am forced to add a twist to my story
simply because I didn’t want my characters angry at me.
I once said I give birth to my
characters and sometimes the labor is long and arduous, but it is always well
worth it. As I put words to paper I grow more and more anxious to see the way
this turns out. I think I am probably going to be a bit surprised.
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