Saturday, March 14, 2009

the pound cake philosopher

Two weeks until my outline is “due,” and I’m feeling better. About everything.

After some quality time yesterday with my main characters, I’ve realized how different Part Two needs to be. (And Part Three. I’m not philosophical about that yet. It hurts, plain and simple. So we won’t think about it.)

Part Two’s enormous changes make sense—you can’t shift the roots of a story without those changes shaking their way out. And all the characters (and the writer!) are pulled along with the shockwaves. Well, that’s okay. That’s how it goes. No one said writing a novel would be easy; in fact, everyone said it would be hard.

Yesterday, though, was brilliant. The character I had to work with? He woke up for Part Two completely changed from who he used to be. Changed for the better. Much better.

Talking so fast, and being so darn funny, and I know my heroine is going to hate him. Perfect. All I have to do is bring the two of them onto the same page in my Word document, and I can’t type fast enough. (Oh, they argue about everything!)

So maybe it will be okay, maybe Part Two will come together quickly. Maybe I can be philosophical with this after all.

It doesn’t hurt that I found a recipe for a cardamom vanilla bean pound cake. That’s where my afternoon’s going, then: to the kitchen. I’ll put my characters to work measuring flour and scraping mixing bowls, and I’ll write down everything they say (or shout, as the case may be).—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 03/14 at 05:21 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages