Normal Doesn't Run in my Family

This has been a great week for writing. I’m in the middle of a scene, my hero is shot and bleeding all over an old buffalo hide, and I have to stop and go eat lunch with friends. Sometimes this is a hard-hearted job. I can almost hear him yelling at me to just write a few more lines before I go.

I guess that’s what all writers have to put up with, their characters following them around. I may be trying to cook supper, but one of them is yelling inside my head that she’s not going to do something, or I go to a movie and one follows along complaining about what a pickle I got them into. I sit in church and one character tells me he’s an atheist. I go for a walk and an 1865 cowboy comes along telling me he’d rather be a poet than a rancher. We get in an argument and I have to go home because people mistakenly think I’m talking to myself.

I would get worried, but normal doesn’t run in my family, so I think I’m safe. Some say writing is a lonely job, and it is, but most of the time I’m traveling through life with a crowd in my head.

Have a great week,

The Waiting Game

I’ll finally sleep tonight. I’ve been waiting to see what my editor and agent thought of my new book. They’ve both called in to say they loved it. My editor suggested changes that I’ve already started on. Once in a while someone is surprised that I have to do rewrites. They say something like, “After 30 books I’d think you’d have it right by now.” In truth I need an editor as much as ever. I see writing as a team career. I might be able to write alone, but to have a winner I need both my editor and my agent.

As a reader I see many books I think are perfect. As a writer I always wish I had one more day to make it better. I think most writers feel the same. A friend of mine always worries about my writing on deadline, but it seems I always have. Even before I sold I’d give myself deadlines. I’m one of those people that if it wasn’t for the last minute I’d never get anything done. I fuss with the first chapter sometimes for weeks and then write the last chapter in a night. In that first chapter I have to find the character and sometimes he or she doesn’t make it easy.

Have a great week end. For my friends in England---I’ll trade one of those rainy days for one of our Texas days at over 100.