waiting for the character

There is a perfect
dead center stillness
around which we circle
until we can't.

I've been thinking about these lines for months. They're about a character, but I don't know who yet. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

So much of working on a novel or a short story -- for me, at least -- is about living with the characters, sometimes for weeks and months, before I write anything down. One way to get closer to the characters during this period is to find out what makes them angry. Strange as it sounds, I look for the trivial things that anger them because those little things are often very revealing about the bigger issues at play in their lives and in the story.

That's why writing is solitary but not lonely, I suppose. Your head is full with other people's voices.