I came to an important conclusion yesterday. I don't really want a writing career as I formerly understood the concept. I thought that because I was able to pull together such a good novel from my mission to gibe the characters from Laura's and my old stories that this meant I was a Writer. I know I can write.. I have known that for years. But what I thought was implicit in my success is that not only can I write other stories and characters but that I should. Now I am not sure that really is what I should do.My original purpose in writing An Involuntary King was to take the characters that existed mostly only in my own head and make them real to others. I found my old friend who had developed them with me and discovered she had not even thought of them for years. Clearly they were not the life force of their own they were and are to me. My husband knew all about them now, thanks to typing all the the old stories for me, and I got a taste from his reaction to the characters, dear sweet man that he is, of what they could offer other reeaders. I started writing about them, adding a more mature insight into their lives and motivations. Then I realized anew how important they h ad been and always were to me. So I gave them an existence beyond myself. I won't last forever. They can.
Thanks to what I learned yesterday and what I realize today has lurked under the surface of my attempts to write other books is that being a novelist was n3ever the prime mover. The characters and writing about them was. So why do anything else? Why relinquish the role I cherish most, that of being the temple priestess to their lives?
Non-writers may find this all odd. They are fictional! These people never existed! Writers will get it though.. get that there is no lack of reality to these vivid characters, these old friends of mine. It's time for the chanting, the libation in the temple. Sacrifice? It doesn't feel like one.
So Random Acts goes on the shelf to wait for its own time.. since it is almost all written, why toss it? Those who have read it liked it. And Adam and Jacques will be translated almost in the spiritual sense to mix with my archetypes of the strong but thoughtful general, the loving but self-absorbed beauty, the intense and driven mercenary, the too good for his own good bard and the innocent wastrel. Their clones may take ovber the story for a while, in a later time and a real setting, but the originals will never let me shelve them. I have already started telling their story here on this blog. The paranormal mysteries in late 10th century Wessex exist and will be my ne project.. starting today
What sweet contentment I feel, back in my proper role again. And how grateful I am to Jim, who last night heard my plans and smiled and affirmed he had know it all along.
Now I just have to break the news to my characters. I think they will be pleased... and a little smug.
My Mother always told me to write about what I know. It can be make believe, but write about something, somewhere, sometime, and someone familiar because you know how they are and can express them convincingly. That is, put your friends in new situations and write about how they would act in this situation. Since "novel" means "new", this makes sense to me.
ReplyDeleteYou know Lawrence and Josephine and the rest, you grew up with them for Pete sake! So I say, taking my Momma's advice is very sensible.
Now people (and characters) grow over time and meet new friends and grow better or worse for the interaction. I note a certain Godlessness that a certain Scottish friar's forebears could rectify. Can you imagine Elerde badly wounded, not very happy that the arrow didn't kill him outright and it isn't festering but it may cripple him worse than the arrow he took in the other shoulder years ago and limit his further success as a mercenary? His band was wiped out in the exercise. He of course would be despondent but being good at the core he can not bring himself to jump off the cliff where he sits for hours trying to figure out why he can not jump. Now this is where he either meets the priest or the girl who saves his life and makes it worth living again. So being the cool character he is and well worth saving he gets both. The priest enters who has been for hours watching Elerde throw one valuable after another over the cliff with his arm still in the sling each time watching his sword, scabbard, purse contents one coin at a time over an hour, mail, boots, mementos of Josephine, and belt fall and clatter down the cliff face. Each time acting as if he will throw himself after the last artifact but at the count of three stepping back instead of forward. Finally, at dusk, under a beautiful sunset, Brother Gramus steps out of the shadows at the edge of the woods where he has been watching the greater part of the afternoon. The good brother takes Elerde to his home, a hermits cave, where he uses his Druidic shaman medicines and Christian prayers and the ministrations of his daughter Erin to bring Elerde back from the brink both physically, mentally, and Spiritually. Of course, the shaman has ulterior motives which lead Elerde to form a new band of not so mercenaries but that is the rest of the story for another time.
Faithfully,
Friar Jak
Well, the old saying is that everyone has a good book in them, and the gifted have one superb book in them: look at Margaret Mitchell, and Harper Lee.
ReplyDeleteAnd you just might try giving it a break for a while, and coming back to another story, when you feel a bit more rested and refreshed. Then you might feel the appeal of new characters and archetypes.
You are absolutely right in saying that your words resonate with other writers. They certainly resonate with this one.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't see the conflict is with being a writer, as such - I think the issue is being a commercial writer. Does it really matter if you share your characters and your delight in them with one other, or a million others? The only real difference is that the million make you money, the one simply gives you the pleasure of sharing.
Compared to JK Rowling, the number of people who have bought my fantasy books is miniscule. But it's more readers than I would have had if I hadn't published. I look forward to sharing your characters' stories at some point Nan - though I can't guarantee when I will get to your book on my top-heavy to-read pile!
I have always written for myself. I try and figure out what is going on inside my characters' heads. I follow and develop their stories, and it leads me to other characters and other stories. Sometimes their stories are grim, sometimes entertaining, often equivocal. Like Nan, my characters are real people to me. Real people are neither heroes nor villains. Real people rarely know all the implications of what they're doing. Real stories do not have a beginning middle and end - even birth and death are incidental to the story of your genes. The books are an attempt to shape their lives into a story coherent to a reader who doesn't have invested in these fictional people everything we writers have invested in them.