There’s no surprise in mentioning that I spend a great portion of my time listening to the opinions and perspectives of characters I’ve altogether made up, and live nowhere but in the confines of my own brain. Writers understand this, but many others will doubtless find it slightly discomfiting and perhaps just odd. It happens. I can accept that.

I was just going through my LJ account, reading posts, trying to get a good idea of when the AG folks started up their conversations with me, and how long it took me to write their story the first time. It turns out I wrote it a lot faster than I thought: just over seven months, almost from start to finish. The first draft was done in March 2008, so I’ve already outspent my editing time rather heftily.

But the story has changed, and that isn’t my fault. I don’t have control over them sometimes. I swear.

Thing is, as I was perusing old posts, it occurred to me how odd it is to think that these characters once didn’t exist. Other than driving me to the near point of madness, this whole multi-POV approach has brought me closer to this batch of characters than through any other endeavor I’ve attempted before. And as such, they’re like friends, or personas, aspects of myself/themselves that I’m really comfortable with, familiar with.

I don’t think I’m getting this across very well, at all. Ah, well. At any rate I thought it would be amusing to post the piece I wrote the day after I was set on by this new menagerie of characters. It amused me, anyway.

August 7, 2007

So, today, in spite of the insane amount of work I’ve been doing as part of my job, I’ve been practically assaulted by a whole new series of characters. All throughout the day today, scenes and snips of dialog have been flitting through my brain.

In some ways, this is disturbing. I have a book. I have two books, in fact. This was not one of the ones I was planning on, but yet it’s like an itch I can’t scratch.

So, well, I sat down after things calmed down a little this evening, and began writing. Four pages ain’t bad at all. Then, I got to the end, and realize someone’s going to die. And die soon. And ugh. That’s a little depressing.

But anyway, I’m actually excited to write this. I was feeling the story in a way that hasn’t happened in a very long time. Michael asked me to go to bed, and instead of abandoning it, I said, “No! I’m at a really good part!” That’s pretty awesome.

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