The reason why I haven't posted in the last few days, is because everytime I go to write something my mind gets sidetracked. I forget what it was that was so important a few moments ago, and decide if all I can think of is some aimless bitching, then I might as well leave the page blank, and go web-surfing.
I've been writing my novel again, maybe just a novella. What's the cut-off point? I wrote ten pages the day before yesterday, and today while sitting outside at a concrete bench and table, I wrote another six or so. I also took an earlier draft of the first couple of chapters and reread them, giving them a cursory once-over, then editing a few points here and there. It is really coming together.
In ROLLING STONE, Gary Trudeau, the author of Doonesbury was talking about his characters, and the recent changes of one inparticular, B.D. He's lost his leg to the Iraqi conflict, but Trudeau explains that he feels less empathy towards his characters than his audience tends to. To him characters aren't living out their lives in his head, they are tools in a mental box, to be used in order to tell the story.
I don't know if that holds true for most authors, it seems not for someone like George Lucas, and his creations in Star Wars. For me, I let characters go where they will, but like a nervous parent, I feel like I am keeping an eye on them. I don't know if I could write a book like Desperation, and then in the fashion of a Shakespearian play, kill half of my cast even though Stephen King has never had the dificulty of filling ten rolls with five actors.
I might have trouble letting go of a character. Is that bad?
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