Joyously Prolific

I have a new book bouncing around in my head. Yes, another one. This is the one Russ and I have been talking out over dinner for a couple weeks now, and it's finally falling into place. I had the basics for a lot of the story figured out. I'm looking for a couple reference books to take care of a few more little bits of information, but over all, I'm happy with what I'm getting. Since this is going to be a mystery set either in current day or possibly in the 70's (the characters and details would remain basically the same, only the background would change), and I really like the idea.

But I had one character still eluding me. I needed a teen girl with an attitude problem.

And I found her while surfing the web tonight, checking out sites and reading through occasional blogs and journals, checking the news sites and all those other places I surf when I should be writing. She finally came leaping into my head, complete with that look of disdain for anything outside her interest, a need to draw attention and doing so by being rude so that everyone has to pay attention to her, and the attitude that a lot of people have at any age -- it's not my fault. Never mind if the problems these people have can all be traced directly to choices made all on their own, and sometimes made even despite warnings. It's still not their fault. And besides, being a martyr is so much more satisfying (and a lot less work) than admitting any wrong choices or wrong doing on their part and moving on with life.

I suspect a lot of people are raised to believe that they can do nothing wrong, so any problems have to be someone else's fault. Maybe they've also found that being wronged is a good way to get sympathy, whether it's deserved or not. I'm sure a few of them have a healthy sense of paranoia.

A teen girl with a case of 'I can't do wrong and why are you picking on me' is just exactly the character I need. She's in trouble. It's going to be fun to write her.

On the other side, in the sequel to Muse, I will have two teen girls who, while a bit eccentric, are really pretty nice. I'm going to have to do something with them that makes them a little less 'clones of each other' but since I'm not going to be writing that book for a while, they can just set in my brain and grow for a while.

I love writing. I hope I can find the time to really get back to it soon. (grin)