My novel, COYOTE WINDS, will be launched in a few months
I am very excited for my characters.
Any novelist will tell you that after coddling, cajoling and
prodding characters through a novel, you fall in love with them, even your villains.
But until you have readers, the characters are two dimensional squiggles on a
page. Only when other people read the story, care about the characters, really
laugh with and cry about them, do your characters become something more than
what you created. They move into the world and affect other people. They are like your grown children. You helped to shape them, but they go on to live lives of their own and
make an impact on the world without you.
Howard is now reading through the final version of the
manuscript. He hasn’t read the entire manuscript in a while so he's seeing a lot
of new material. About halfway through the book, he wanted to know what happens
to Ro, Myles, and Lionel. He was almost tearful. I tried to appear sympathetic, but honestly, I was giddy. You see, Howard is a
former attorney and philosophy professor with a fondness for sarcasm and
cynicism. If he was moved by my characters, then I succeeded.
So go on out there, Myles, Ro, Andy, Clare, Lionel, Shirley,
Herbert and Tommy. Go find your way in the world.
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