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June 13, 2005

Why is Writing So Damn Hard?

From Beverly, June's Guest Literary Chick, aka Deadline Avoider!

So many writers will say that they don't love writing, but they love having written. I am one of those people. I love, love, love having books on the bookstore shelves. I love plotting my books before writing them. I love thinking up characters and doing research. I don't even mind doing revisions. But I don't like writing. Writing is hard, and, because I'm hopelessly late on yet another deadline (I wasn't always this way--I used to be early--but I got behind on one deadline last year and I've spent the last seven months desperately trying to get caught up), I was banging my head on the wall this evening and wondering why, why, why does it have to be this hard?!

Well, I think I found the answer.

It's hard because while you're writing, you are living two different lives at the same time. While I'm sitting here in my chair, thinking about how my ass hurts from sitting here in my chair for so many hours on end (see, I really AM trying to get caught up!), petting my cat when she wanders in, mentally making a grocery list for dinner tonight, answering questions for the guy who's come to paint our dock, gathering info for the bookmarks I need to get designed, etc, etc., I am also in this other world, trying to figure out how to pull off a 3-proposal Marry-Me Marathon on Valentine's Day without a hitch. Why? Because that's my heroine's job in the novella I'm writing right now (a novella which, coincidentally, is in THE NAKED TRUTH, with your very own Alesia Holliday this October).

The thing is, in my own life, I don't have to think about why I feel the way I feel about something or decide how to react to an event. I feel and act automatically, because I have lived my life and do what I do because that's how I do it. Make sense? :)

But when you're in that "other" life, thinking and acting and feeling on behalf of your characters, you have to stop and ask yourself, "What would do, and why?" If you don't know the answer to that, you end up writing the kind of characters readers don't believe in. They're like paper dolls that just get moved around the page at the whim of the author, and most likely, think and act and feel exactly the same way the author does. You can tell when this happens because an author will consistently get hammered for her main characters having the same traits from book to book. I'm glad I don't do that--I get ripped to shreds by reviewers for different things on every book! Lucky me. But at least that means I'm digging deep enough into each character that she is her own person. Unfortunately, it's hard work, living someone else's life for a few months, learning why she thinks relationships make your life worse and not better, and why it is that her plastic surgeon husband of six months ran off with her sister, and who IS that hot divorce attorney who has it on his calendar to call her on the one-year anniversary of her divorce . . .

It's fascinating work. It's fun in the brainstorming phase. I can't wait to actually see the book on the shelves. But I sure as hell wish it were easier!

Beverly

Posted by at 8:50 PM | Comments (1)

Comments

Posted by: Alesia Holliday at June 14, 2005 9:53 AM