It Takes A While
One of the things I remember hearing about writing novels before I started writing them myself was that they are a unique in art form in that they take so long to create. So do many art forms, you say, but novels are amplified by the fact that the only constant is you, the writer. But you, the writer change over that time, and so must your work; work you can't see the whole of at any one time because it's this massive, sprawling thing that is almost impossible to keep in your mind all at once. Now, multiply that by four (so far) and you have what it's like to write a series.
I started writing Remember, November in 2016. We're three months out from 2020 now, and I'm not the same person that I was then, and neither are you. None of us are. I'm writing Book IV of the series November kicked off, and not only am I in a different place, so are the characters. They aren't who I dreamed up three years ago; they've grown and changed. It's very important to me that they aren't static, that they learn from their experiences, but that means it's like writing slightly new people every time. They've changed, I've changed, my writing has changed, but it still has to feel consistent, and there is a constant tension there that is fascinating to try to look at. I have to in order to make the series work, and it's not always easy.
Not everything gets written down, I have to account for the things that the reader never sees, but have impacted the character. Why she makes a certain choice or reacts a certain way may be informed by something that even I'm not even conscious of, but since I've spent so much time with her, she tells me without having had to write out an entire bible of backstory. I have quite a lot of that, mind, but things don't always spring from it. Some things, once you realize them, are blindingly obvious in hindsight, and others feel like miracles that you pulled out of nowhere. I prefer the former, but won't say no to the latter.
The sausage-making of this art form is often ugly; there are as many steps backwards as forwards, but when it's all done, it's there forever. A time capsule that contains months and years, rather than a moment, and is all the more revealing for it.
We all grow together; not always at the same rate, or in the same direction, but it never stops.
I started writing Remember, November in 2016. We're three months out from 2020 now, and I'm not the same person that I was then, and neither are you. None of us are. I'm writing Book IV of the series November kicked off, and not only am I in a different place, so are the characters. They aren't who I dreamed up three years ago; they've grown and changed. It's very important to me that they aren't static, that they learn from their experiences, but that means it's like writing slightly new people every time. They've changed, I've changed, my writing has changed, but it still has to feel consistent, and there is a constant tension there that is fascinating to try to look at. I have to in order to make the series work, and it's not always easy.
Not everything gets written down, I have to account for the things that the reader never sees, but have impacted the character. Why she makes a certain choice or reacts a certain way may be informed by something that even I'm not even conscious of, but since I've spent so much time with her, she tells me without having had to write out an entire bible of backstory. I have quite a lot of that, mind, but things don't always spring from it. Some things, once you realize them, are blindingly obvious in hindsight, and others feel like miracles that you pulled out of nowhere. I prefer the former, but won't say no to the latter.
The sausage-making of this art form is often ugly; there are as many steps backwards as forwards, but when it's all done, it's there forever. A time capsule that contains months and years, rather than a moment, and is all the more revealing for it.
We all grow together; not always at the same rate, or in the same direction, but it never stops.
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