I just finished a new story, one unlike any other I\u2019ve written thus far. I can\u2019t explain the feeling, the excitement, the sense of teetering between promise and trepidation at hopes of getting it in print. If you write, you know it. If you don\u2019t, no words will suffice.<\/p>\n
The characters in my tales are always real to me. I could describe to you their physical appearance, their emotional makeup, their mindset. I could predict what they might do in almost any situation. Usually. Sometimes they surprise me.<\/p>\n
The same with the settings. I see<\/em> the surroundings. Smell<\/em> the fragrances or aromas or stench. Hear<\/em> the sounds and noises and voices and laughter. Feel<\/em> the heat or the cold or the wind or the rain. On occasion, it\u2019s at least in part because I\u2019ve been to a similar place. Not always, though. Can\u2019t say I\u2019ve ever been to another planet. Not yet, anyway.<\/p>\n Whether I love them or despise them, the characters and their settings take over a large portion of my thoughts when I\u2019m writing them. Earlier today, Bobby asked if I wanted cheese on my burger. It took me a full minute to answer. I had to come back from the cloud forest to do so. It\u2019s often hard to leave the characters and settings behind! I read once that Rowling said she was sad when Harry Potter\u2019s story was finished. It felt like she was leaving behind a family. I know a tiny taste of that. I often think, \u201cDamn. What next?\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s sometimes a few days before I can really pull my head totally out of what I just finished, so there\u2019s usually no question about moving immediately to something else. In a way, it\u2019s like my weekend. I have a couple of days to do all the stuff I should have done but didn\u2019t while I was embedded in another world. I\u2019ve learned to take advantage of that time.<\/p>\n For this story, I\u2019ll set it aside like I did the last one. A few weeks from now, I\u2019ll pull it out, read it again, tweak it and start looking for a publisher.<\/p>\n But now, in this moment, I am basking. Thoughts of my characters and their story still swirl in my head. It\u2019s hard not to keep picking away at the draft. I just have to distract myself with other tasks.<\/p>\n Anyway, when you read this, celebrate with me. Have a beer, or a glass of wine, or a really good brownie. Whatever your favorite treat. Whether or not it ever gets published, it\u2019s a completed draft. That is never a bad thing.<\/p>\n {LATER: <\/u> Okay, it\u2019s a little over two weeks since I actually penned this post. As I said, I\u2019d only just finished the story referenced above (which is still awaiting the perfect title, but which am tentatively calling \u201cFlight of Fancy\u201d). As you\u2019ll note, I said it\u2019s usually a few days before I can move on to another project. Which just goes to prove there\u2019s an exception to every rule. Not an hour after I finished the draft of this blog post, another story exploded fully developed in my head. I sat back down at the computer and penned it all in a few hours. (That one is still awaiting its re-read, too, and is tentatively called \u201cA Murder of Crows.\u201d)<\/p>\n I\u2019ll keep you posted on how they do in queries.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I just finished a new story, one unlike any other I\u2019ve written thus far. I can\u2019t explain the feeling, the excitement, the sense of teetering between promise and trepidation at hopes of getting it in print. If you write, you know it. If you don\u2019t, no words will suffice. The characters in my tales are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8n0kX-41","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":250,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions\/250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}