IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING

I’d not been writing on my blog recently, because I’d been busy elsewhere.

I really thought I’d informed my readers that I had decided to write a book. But when I went onto my blog, I discovered that I haven’t told you about my plans. Except for my family, I have not told any of the people I associate with either. Now I’m ready.

Last week, I finished it. This was a tremendous experience for me, I’d never thought about doing a book of fiction or any other book at all.

In writing a book, you must decide what type of book it’s to be. Then you need a plot and a main character.

That’s not what I did, I saw a somewhat unusual person on a sidewalk as I was driving   by on my way to the Dollar Store. I thought that would be a great title for a book. I was laughing as I continued on my way, but the title kept nagging me.

I could not stop thinking about her and decided I was going to write a comedy/mystery about her. I first told my plan to my husband of almost sixty-three years, and empathized that the woman I was writing about was not me and any man in it would not be him.

I know you should only write about what you know, so I planned that the lady would be in her eighties. I quickly changed that, thinking who wants to read about an old lady? So she’s in her late fifties.

I read the first two pages to my husband and we both thought them funny. However, what I had plotted in my head, did not translate to my keyboard. I started to realize that the story became very dark and in spite of the light beginning, it turned into something tragic. The story was writing itself, nothing of what I’d planned took hold.

My evil character, who would die and get his just reward, suddenly gave me a new prospective of himself. I have no idea why.

  

Then more characters popped up, and suddenly they all meshed in. Now I was writing every day and gained more insight into these people I had created and began to understand things about them, I’d not thought possible to explain.

Then my people started speaking in the first person about themselves and also carried the plot along. My own kids upon reading some of the book said not to create any more characters. They felt it would be difficult to keep them straight. I felt a little different, but I tried to keep it simple.

I became very excited about my first love scene, I cried when I finished it.  When I asked my daughter how she felt about it, she said “what love scene? It’s so subtle, she’d missed the point. I still kept it in.

In a later chapter, I started writing very brazenly about an affair.  Of all who have read it, no one has said “tone it down” so I got away with it. But will my young grandchildren be allowed to read it?

At this point, I discovered I was writing about very romantic people, whom I loved. I knew I’d have to kill someone and picked out that person and how his death would create more drama. When I wrote that scene, none of what I planned happened. It took a twist somehow, and the scene itself became very dramatic for every one of my cast.

Most of what I’d done could actually be a play reading, the thing I’m totally familiar with. 

When I was trying to get back to the prequel of the first section, everything I had planned went totally out the window and once again the novel became a comedy. That part became my favorite and the ending came with tears in my eyes again.

I feel that way because the people I created are my children and I love them all.

My book is about 70,000 words in case you wondered, just enough for a novel.

Does anyone know of an agent for me to contact, or know someone in publishing?