I haven’t written a lot in the way of stories in a while. I was beginning to feel like I couldn’t anymore. I’ve been editing, writing patterns and so on but actually sitting down to write scene after scene, I haven’t done in months.
Last night I got lost in the telling of my story. I started out grumbling to myself about how tired I was and how I wasn’t sure where I was going, and a variety of other things. I had this whole mental dialog at the end of which I essentially told myself to quit whining. I spent several hours writing and by the time I was done, I had written eight small scenes, about 4000 words.
As I was writing the flow just seemed to come to me. I couldn’t type fast enough, as I was finishing one scene the next would pop into my head. I could almost see them play out in my head.
Being a responsible adult – which not as fun as kids think it is – I turned out the lights at 11:15 to go to bed so Monday wouldn’t be MONDAY. Instead of sleeping, I lay in the dark wondering if I had written good scenes, if they were too short, too back and forth. Among a million other things, the book kept going through my head.
After a bad night’s sleep and a long day at work, I’m back at my computer. I reread the scenes and they are quick but I don’t think too quick. I think I’ve got the right mood, tone, and rhythm I want in them. One or two of them might need to be fleshed out more with a bit of description but for the most part these are conversations so you get to know the characters better.
Wayfarer Expansion is out after I had my freak out about ten books in a series and thinking it was time to wrap it up or maybe not or …. I said it was a freak out. I got in my own way with writing. Granted I was doing a lot of crocheting and writing of patterns but still I got in my own way with story telling. It doesn’t matter if it is book 1 or 100 (wonder if I could make it that far with this series?) as long as I’m telling a good and complete story, that is all that matters.
Ultimately that is the goal – a good story. I want it to be one which will make you laugh, cry, and hold your breath. I want you to hate putting it down and hate waiting for the next one. I want you to love the characters unless they are bad – then I want you to love hating them. I know this is asking a lot of my readers but I’m asking it of myself first.
There are still parts of books when I go back to read them (yes my own) where I still cry, laugh and so on. There are books I hate putting down from other authors – ones I will stay up all night reading even if I have to work the next day. On my own, I’m not such a good judge on this criteria. I think that’s what makes a good story. I think this is what keeps readers coming back – a couple of hours of escape into another world which involves you so much you forget about whatever is going on in your own life and focus solely on the story.