09 April 2009--The Ghosts of a Story

I think I sort of view my characters as those ghosts in Ghost Town. Rick Gervais is the only one who can see or hear these ghosts, so they take advantage of that by clamoring to him so that he may be able to take care of their unfinished business, and they can go to their final rest. Funny movie, by the way.

Now that I've finally begun to truly write, it's as if I have all these people talking to me and I'm trying to write down all these images and words that they give me as fast as I can Unfortunately, I don't know where these snippets are going. I don't know which character goes with which story and what unfinished business they have that I need to fix (or facilitate in the fixing). What's worse is I don't know if any of this storytelling is related to the one I'm working on. I'm just trying to get all those voices out and on paper, so at least they can breathe a little bit, and in doing so, I hope to be able to follow the one voice that I so desperately want to, and be able to finish her story, since it's the most compelling (to me, of course). I'm still developing the discipline of sitting down with the one project and developing those characters and rounding out their roles and where they will fit in my current project.

I woke up this morning thinking of her and her name and how it's all starting to fit together. I had the fleeting thought of trying to figure out the opening pages of the book, and then realized I benefitted more with knowing about the last half of the book before the first half. I have a sketch of the second half, but it's still so very rough. It really is at the point where it needs to be thrown into the computer, and then cull whatever is not in lines with the universe I've created. The cullings will of course exist somewhere. I think I'll make a file folder or bulletin board with them "pinned" on. Pin. That reminds me of that movie agent in the movie, Bolt.

I still have homework to do tonight. I have left her family a mystery to her, and I realize that as the maniacal god of this universe, I should at least know about her family. I find that at times it's hard to separate being in close connection with that character and directing the action. Again, something I'm learning. Yay for me and all my learnings.