Tuesday, July 9, 2013

That old familiar feeling

So, I started working on a book. It has been a long time since I wrote and lots of things in my life have changed since then. I've hit the wall more times than I've missed it, to be honest. I want to write. I have the story in my head. Unfortunately, there seems to be some kind of block between what's in my head and what magically appears on the screen when my fingers strike the keys!
Feeling frustrated, I talked it out with a few people. The best piece of advice I got was from my mom. It seemed so simple a solution that I hardly believed it would work. In the past, my pattern has been this; I read a book (often a Jill Mansell book) and then I write a book! Well, that pattern doesn't seem to be working for me.
My mom's solution to my block was this...read your book again. See, I'm trying to write a sequel to one of my books. I know what I want my characters to experience. Taking my mom's advice, I sat down with my kindle and began to read my book. Guess what I found?
I may know where I want my characters to go, but I had forgotten where they came from! Can you believe it? I created those characters and their story, but I had forgotten a lot about them.
So, as I sit back this summer and read my book again, I am hoping that my characters will remind me who they are, how they fell in love, and what they went through in order to help me write their next adventure!

Oh yeah, and thanks mom!