Thursday, October 1, 2009

Happy October!

Dear Lucy,
Happy October! It is cool and raining today and I feel like making soup or curling up in a warm blanket and reading for the day.
But alas, I am not.
I have been working daily on Gold Fever, chipping out small chapters and adding bits to current chapters.
The best part of writing a novel is writing the evil character. They are so much fun. Is it the evil in me? Who knows, but the words to describe my evil character, Samuel Carter just seem to flow like the rain in Washington.
The tough part is giving him some kind of good quality that the reader can relate to that keeps him from just being completely evil and easily hated. Even Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter had a pathetic side: The misunderstood boy of a crazy muggle mother and his absent magical father; his being rescued by Dumbledore. It makes us all identify with how a person could turn so evil when so abused as a child.
So, Carter grew up dirt poor and had to work to keep his family in food. He is determined to never be a poor nobody again. His motive is good but the end does not justify the means. And it is the means that is fun to write.
Novels never really go as planned. Characters become life-like and take on their own agendas. Makes writing a discovery. Makes the writer continue on through the sweat of writing to get the characters through the story.
It is amazing just how much can happen to distract a writer. People, events, chores, pets, the phone ringing, appetite, thirst and just plain old inertia.
I am determined to work past these and at least get the first draft DONE.
Pray for me!
--Kathy

2 comments:

  1. There is a great book, which I wanted to give you while you were here (but could not find it!)- "The Writer's Journey - Mythic Structure for Writers" by Christopher Volger. (now that you are gone, of course I found it! HA! Let me know if you want it. I found it to be a very insightful look at character creation, psychology and implementation.

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  2. I shall see if it is at the library. I live for the library.

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