Sometimes you wake up with your mind completely blank. Other times, you wake up with a serial killer in your head.
Sometimes the love story turns out perfectly. Other times, some minor character suddenly thinks he’s the star and should get the girl.
Sometimes you cry with your characters and sometimes you smile as you wreak havoc in their lives.
Welcome to five minutes in the mind of a writer.
There is a story behind each and every one of these dilemmas. Some are ongoing. Some haven’t started yet. (If you’re wondering, it’s the serial killer that has yet to start. I’m trying to ignore him.) They all live in my head all together at any given time.
Sometimes even the writer can’t control what happens in her story. People think I’m crazy when I talk about my characters like they’re real people, but they are. To me. I watch their lives and write down what happens. It’s just as simple and as difficult as that.
I say all this to make the point that writing is hard work and far more detailed than most people think. It’s a job that requires passion for the art. It’s hard work that may or may not pan out in the end. It’s putting a piece of your most vulnerable self on paper and praying that people don’t rip that part of you apart bit by bit. It’s unpredictable.
Just like life.
I’m a writer partly because I want to help people escape reality into an epic adventure. However, we all have to deal with life and what it throws at us. Even I have to deal with life.
Let me make a confession: Hello. My name is Megan Fatheree, and I hate the unpredictable.
Long story short, I’ve had too many unpredictable things happen in my life, and change and I don’t often get along. I’m an introvert and – even though I’m better now – grew up painfully shy and bashful. Change forces me out of my comfort zone. I don’t like that. Do I have a choice?
No. Sadly.
I hate to be the one to break the bad news, but you don’t have a choice either. You do have a different choice though! You can be the person that sees “two steps forward, one step back” and thinks it’s a delay. Or you can be the person that sees it and thinks, “It’s like a cha-cha!”
It’s the unpredictable that makes living interesting, but it also makes life cruel. I deal with that all the time. Life throws the most odd curveballs at every one of us. No one is exempt. Not even writers. Not even characters.
I’m going to admit that in my latest book, A Time to Live (affiliate link), I had so many of these unpredictable moments I began to question my own sanity. As the third book in the trilogy, everything started coming together and crashing into a climax. Not, however, before everything went wrong and I had to reevaluate both my plot-line ideas and my existence on this planet.
However, even for these characters, I had to try to look on the positive side. I know it’s hard, y’all! Our little human selves want to complain about everything and see all the negative and eat a gallon of ice cream in one sitting. All of these are bad ideas! How are we ever going to learn to deal with the unpredictable if we aren’t a little bit positive about what’s coming down the road?
So… Is life unpredictable? Yes. Will this writer continue to shut out the serial killer character until he finally wins over due to persistence and sociopathy? Probably. Will you join me in embracing life’s unpredictable moments?
That’s up to you.
Hey all, Amy here! Here to tell you all about the wonder of Megan and her stories. Megan Fatheree is the co-founder of #writersslumberit, where we spent many a night discussing psychopathic villains. If you enjoy Christian romantic thrillers, Megan is your gal. I was proud to copyedit Dust to Dust (affiliate link), the first of the trilogy. A Time to Live, the final book in the series, launches today!
Check out the book:
Amazon (affiliate link)
Apple Books
Barnes and Noble Nook
Kobo
Disclaimer: All of the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links. I may receive a portion of sales. More importantly, you will gain a new favorite author with piles of romantic thrillers for you to binge-read.
