Ugh! Algebra! — #MFRWauthor Week 3

Welcome to week 3 of the 2018 Marketing for Romance Writers 52-week blog challenge. This week’s prompts is: How much of myself is in my writing?

Before I get started with this week’s blog post, can I just say that I’m struggling here? My daughter and granddaughters came to visit for Christmas, and then I came back home with them for an extended visit. I had to leave my new puppy behind in the care of my Older Daughter, and while I know the two of them are fine together, I’m a bit bummed at ot getting quality puppy time–BUT, I am getting quality daughter and grandkid time, so I’m not complainig. I really just wanted to show off my puppy

Being here with family is wonderful, but I’ve also had a few pesky health issues since I arrived, which has made it hard to settle in, hard to figure out a rhythm to my days, hard to even find the place where I want that rhythm to take place. My daughter put a lovely desk in the guest room, but this is an older house, the room is drk, and there are no electric plugs near where I’d like to plug in my computer. The house was built before electronics became a thing–back when people thought one or two plugs in the most unlikely places were enough in any room. It’s taken me a bit to find my niche.

As a result, I haven’t written anything since mid-December. So the quick answer to this week’s prompt is: right now? Nothing! Not a darn thing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. But that’s probably not keeping in the spirit of the blog, is it? So let’s talk about “normal” times.

How much of me is in my writing? That depends on the book. You might occasionally meet a character with whom I share opinions, but you also might now. That’s not required when I write, and I do my best to avoid showering you with my personal opinions about the world as I’m writing. I don’t pick up worlds of fiction to be inundated by some other writer’s personal opinions, and I try not to be guilty of it, myself.

But I do need to connect with the characters, and their motivation must ring true to me before I can write any book. I hear people say, “You’re a writer. You should be able to write anything,” but that’s just now how it works for me. Implausible plots, illogical characters, plots that don’t resonate with me or with the characters just won’t fly with me.

I can’t just shove two people together, tell them to fall in love, and then watch it happen. I can’t toss a dead body in front of a character, tell him or her to investigate and then sit back and watch the fun. They have to care, and care deeply, or I can’t write. Which means I have to connect personally with the character enough to feel when they care and when they don’t. So in that aspect, theres a lot of me in every book. But would you recognize it as me? I’m not sure.

I’ve used events from my past in some books and I’ve used events from the news or the lives of friends (with their permission) in others. Most of it, however, is pure imagination. I make stuff up for a living. That’s the long and the short of it.

This is a blog hop, so make sure you check out what the other participating writers have to say. Their links are below.

---

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…