Monthly Archives: October 2014

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I’ll start…you finish

Caugt someone reading in a funny position and this shot came out of it.

“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”–Samuel Johnson

I was talking to one of my patients today and we were discussing how much we both enjoyed reading.  She told me that she loved to read because she could make the people and the places in the story whatever she wanted them to be.  I asked her what she meant and she said, “The characters can look like whatever I want them to look like.  The setting is what I want it to be.”  Now, as a fanatic reader, I know she’s right.  When I read, all heroines magically look like me.  If the author describes a character or a setting in such a way that it doesn’t feel right in my head, I just change it.  That’s what readers do, right?  As a writer, though, it took me aback to think that someone might do that to one of my books!  These stories were gifted to me by my imaginary friends.  I gave birth to these tales and, frankly, it wasn’t always an easy labor.  As I mulled over her words, I realized that I was looking at this in the wrong way.  I write to share my imagination, my fantasies, and all things scary, lovely, and weird.  If someone is enjoying my work enough to meld their own dreams with mine, that’s pretty cool.  It’s all very kumbaya, but I like the thought that we’re all connected in our literary world.  I’ll start the book, you finish it.

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When two worlds collide…

worlds collideI sometimes feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde rolled up into one neurotic mess.  I have a demanding job—–demanding of my time and my abilities.  By the time I leave work, the sun is setting and I am exhausted and, at times, resentful that I have no mental energy left to write.  I try to pound out a few pages, though, knowing that the work will need serious editing at some point.  The next morning, I feel mentally refreshed but have no time to write.  I have to hit the road and start a new day.  What I have found, however, is that the morning drive to the hospital is a perfect time for me to develop plots and characters and figure out the next chapter in my story.  Admittedly, I can get lost in that other world.  One early morning this week, I was walking through the still deserted hallways of the hospital, apparently speaking out loud as one of my characters.  I say “apparently” because I didn’t know I was doing it until I passed a doctor.  My voice trailed off and I shifted my eyes in embarrassment as he looked at me curiously.  Truth be told, I often speak out loud as my characters.  I find that it helps me determine if what I’m writing sounds realistic.  I didn’t know, until that moment, that I do it in public, too.  As I held my lips tightly shut, I chastised myself.  “They’re going to lock you up in the Behavioral Unit,” my serious self yelled internally.  My writer self answered, “Good.  I’ll have more time to write.”