Cynthia Hamilton's Blog: Reading and Writing - Posts Tagged "i-b-the-magic-of-writing-b-i"
The Magic of Writing
I’ll be the first one to admit I have little to do with the stories I write. By that I mean another side of me emerges when I sit down at the computer, a side I never even knew existed until I was searching for something I could do from bed, if that’s where my mystery illness was heading.
From the first day of writing in secret, an inner voice took control. I’ve since realized my job is simply to keep up, typing as quickly as I can to catch it all before the muse gets irritated with my slow progress and becomes distracted.
Since I’m basically just along for the ride, you can imagine my surprise when I was in the middle of writing Spouse Trap and that voice in my head pulled a switcharoo on me as Madeline made a phone call to an old friend down in Los Angeles. Instead of reaching a petite flight attendant named Shannon as planned, a 6”3’ long-haired surfer dude named Mike Delaney answered the phone.
I remember how the scene flashed before my eyes as if I were watching it on TV. And with the visuals came the backstory as Mike ribs Madeline for calling him out of the blue, giving her not so subtle digs for breaking his heart and marrying Steven Ridley 12 years earlier. I remember Mike was dressed in surf trunks and an old T-shirt, holding the bottle of orange soda he had been chugging when the phone rang.
Why the orange soda? I remember thinking. Because he’s a recovering alcoholic, came the reply.
Then all the backstory unfolded: Madeline coercing Mike into rehab five years earlier; Mike’s father leaving him a tidy fortune in the form of two classic apartment complexes in Hollywood; his father’s ’64 Mercedes coupe, a guaranteed babe magnet that Mike drives with style and dignity as he tools around L.A.
Once Mike arrived on the scene, I realized I had to just go with the flow. Whatever control I thought I had over the creative process had been ceded to the unknown entity lurking inside my brain. And I can say that as I work on book 6 in the series, I’ve come to realize my part in the creative process is minimal. My job is to simply capture the words as they speed through my brain.
And to everyone out there who feels as I once did about my utter lack of writing talent, I say none of us ever really know what we’re capable of until we’re pushed.
From the first day of writing in secret, an inner voice took control. I’ve since realized my job is simply to keep up, typing as quickly as I can to catch it all before the muse gets irritated with my slow progress and becomes distracted.
Since I’m basically just along for the ride, you can imagine my surprise when I was in the middle of writing Spouse Trap and that voice in my head pulled a switcharoo on me as Madeline made a phone call to an old friend down in Los Angeles. Instead of reaching a petite flight attendant named Shannon as planned, a 6”3’ long-haired surfer dude named Mike Delaney answered the phone.
I remember how the scene flashed before my eyes as if I were watching it on TV. And with the visuals came the backstory as Mike ribs Madeline for calling him out of the blue, giving her not so subtle digs for breaking his heart and marrying Steven Ridley 12 years earlier. I remember Mike was dressed in surf trunks and an old T-shirt, holding the bottle of orange soda he had been chugging when the phone rang.
Why the orange soda? I remember thinking. Because he’s a recovering alcoholic, came the reply.
Then all the backstory unfolded: Madeline coercing Mike into rehab five years earlier; Mike’s father leaving him a tidy fortune in the form of two classic apartment complexes in Hollywood; his father’s ’64 Mercedes coupe, a guaranteed babe magnet that Mike drives with style and dignity as he tools around L.A.
Once Mike arrived on the scene, I realized I had to just go with the flow. Whatever control I thought I had over the creative process had been ceded to the unknown entity lurking inside my brain. And I can say that as I work on book 6 in the series, I’ve come to realize my part in the creative process is minimal. My job is to simply capture the words as they speed through my brain.
And to everyone out there who feels as I once did about my utter lack of writing talent, I say none of us ever really know what we’re capable of until we’re pushed.
