Dishes and Daydreams: the happy chore of novel writing by Thea Atkinson
It's inevitable. I think I'm done writing and editing for a spell; I think I can kind of sit back and read authors like Larry Enright, Vivienne Tuffnell, GRR Martin, and recently, KC May and just…well…let myself escape with characters from someone else's story. I want to enjoy a book for a change without having the edit motor on. I want to sink into words of someone else's making. The introvert in me wants to meet new folks in the least threatening way: to read them.
But I'll be doing the dishes before I settle in with a new book, and the hot suds will foam around my knuckles and I'll start to think, "What if….How come…?"
I love to daydream, always have, and so I let myself go whenever I get a chance. (I have this dream where Eddie Vedder or Stephen King or *gasp* Johnnie Depp reads one of my books and loves it because there's always a bit of dark in a Thea read….but I really digress now)
As you can see, the daydream button turns on easily--or rather, it goes on humming because it's always on, just in a sort of stasis when I'm working--and whatever person might have populated my dreams turns into something/someone else. The initial step to the evolution is quick most times, and then the quick shift slows to a sort of turning-of-a-green-worm-in-a- cocoon kind of thing. The thing within gets inspected, looked over, it grows and changes very slowly over a few days as I find myself spending time with this new someone more and more.
I lie on the couch with a pillow and blankie asking this new person questions in a way that's less interrogation, more planting them visually in the middle of a scenario and seeing how they react, what they think about, what they remember.
Then I can't go back to the daydream.
I have to find out more, and that's what the novel process is for me. I need to get to know this new character, and that's what always drives the story for me. Inevitably I know that this new person has something very dark inside that wants relief, that needs lightened, and writing his/her story lets me find it, examine it, and hopefully shed some light on it so the character can slip back down into the primordial mud and rest there, content to have lived.
It can be disconcerting if you're not used to it, but I find it comforting. In all, for me it's about character, and even if I think I know the end when I pen the first words, I also know it can change as easily as the character puts on pants instead of a skirt.
Now if you'll excuse me, there are dishes in the sink that need washing.
-30-
Thea Atkinson is a writer of character driven fiction; call it what you will: she prefers to describe her work as psychological thrillers with a distinct literary flavour. As in her bestselling novel, Anomaly, her characters often find themselves in the darker edges of their own spirits but manage to find the light they seek.
She has been an editor, a freelancer, and a teacher, but fiction is her passion. She now blogs and writes and twitters. Not necessarily in that order.
Please visit her blog for ramblings, guest posts, giveaways, and more
http://theaatkinson.wordpress.com
or follow her on twitter
http://twitter.com/#!/theaatkinson
or like her facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Theas-Writing-Page/122231651163413
But I'll be doing the dishes before I settle in with a new book, and the hot suds will foam around my knuckles and I'll start to think, "What if….How come…?"
I love to daydream, always have, and so I let myself go whenever I get a chance. (I have this dream where Eddie Vedder or Stephen King or *gasp* Johnnie Depp reads one of my books and loves it because there's always a bit of dark in a Thea read….but I really digress now)
As you can see, the daydream button turns on easily--or rather, it goes on humming because it's always on, just in a sort of stasis when I'm working--and whatever person might have populated my dreams turns into something/someone else. The initial step to the evolution is quick most times, and then the quick shift slows to a sort of turning-of-a-green-worm-in-a- cocoon kind of thing. The thing within gets inspected, looked over, it grows and changes very slowly over a few days as I find myself spending time with this new someone more and more.
I lie on the couch with a pillow and blankie asking this new person questions in a way that's less interrogation, more planting them visually in the middle of a scenario and seeing how they react, what they think about, what they remember.
Then I can't go back to the daydream.
I have to find out more, and that's what the novel process is for me. I need to get to know this new character, and that's what always drives the story for me. Inevitably I know that this new person has something very dark inside that wants relief, that needs lightened, and writing his/her story lets me find it, examine it, and hopefully shed some light on it so the character can slip back down into the primordial mud and rest there, content to have lived.
It can be disconcerting if you're not used to it, but I find it comforting. In all, for me it's about character, and even if I think I know the end when I pen the first words, I also know it can change as easily as the character puts on pants instead of a skirt.
Now if you'll excuse me, there are dishes in the sink that need washing.
-30-
Thea Atkinson is a writer of character driven fiction; call it what you will: she prefers to describe her work as psychological thrillers with a distinct literary flavour. As in her bestselling novel, Anomaly, her characters often find themselves in the darker edges of their own spirits but manage to find the light they seek.She has been an editor, a freelancer, and a teacher, but fiction is her passion. She now blogs and writes and twitters. Not necessarily in that order.
Please visit her blog for ramblings, guest posts, giveaways, and more
http://theaatkinson.wordpress.com
or follow her on twitter
http://twitter.com/#!/theaatkinson
or like her facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Theas-Writing-Page/122231651163413