After one month of focusing on nothing but reading, I’m finding it hard to get back into the swing of things with Following Julia Roberts (the working title of my novel). All the advice/writing/inspiring/etc. books say that you should not lose the momentum of your novel. Write Every Day! Plunge On!
Bite me. I needed a break, okay?
Anyway, I write most of my stories/chapters out by hand first. I just like the tactile feel of hand on pen on paper. It’s intimate to me–and I like seeing how many different ways I can shape my ‘t’s in cursive. When I left off with FJR I anticipated that I would need to ‘get back in the groove’ and, therefore, I did not type up the last bit of Chapter Eleven. By leaving it to be punched into the computer, I allowed myself a chance to re-read where I left off.
So far, it’s worked. I remember what I was supposed to be doing and in the process have rediscovered my characters as if they were someone else’s. Now, does that sound bad? I don’t think so. Just because Harry Potter is not my character, does not mean that I don’t know him. I didn’t get the chance to end Harry’s story, or Scarlett O’Hara’s, but the opportunity I have to come in the middle of a story and direct characters that I know/love, and see with fresh eyes the direction that the story should go, well…it’s kind of like getting to write the end of the Harry Potter series from Goblet of Fire to the end. (This is just an example, people, I do not consider myself the next Rowling…I just hope.)