Now I wait for feedback on the epilogue. I make whatever tweaks I think are needed. I let Mme. Agent know it's done. I take a day and write the (yuck fooey) long form synopsis, and get that off to Mme. Agent. Then I slam through the associated short story about the detective in the series. Then I start the fourth book in the series, Cleveland Rocks.

Meep.

Go, Deb!

Damn, woman, you write fast. (I know this is fast for you, but I thought the ghost books were much faster than I could do, too. Of course, I only rarely get that many good ideas, at once.)

This is one reason I steer all the way clear from the coy blogging discussions about "process".

I aint got no stinkin' process. There are characters and a road, for me. That's pretty much it.

To some extent, I like them. Because I'm new at it and writing is kind of...solitary so shop talk can be amusing. But I get just as irritated as you with the people that have these super-involved rituals or say that it *must* be with this special paper...ugh. Or, I saw this really famous airport book author on TV one time and she swore the characters talked to her...that was embarrassing.

Or, I saw this really famous airport book author on TV one time and she swore the characters talked to her...that was embarrassing.

The easiest stories for me are when I've got the characters talking in my head. Those are the ones I know are safe until I can get them written down. Other times, I'm staring at the cast in my head and mumbling, "Do something, already."

Someone over on LJ linked to a writing teacher's site, where he was saying stuff like "Make sure to foreshadow the theme of your story three times. If the story's about someone having a baby, use things like opening a door to show a transition or someone on hands and knees doing something, because that's a very earthy position."

True, my Buffista-corrupted brain supplied, but my first thought would be about sex, not giving birth. Like Freud, sometimes opening a door means someone is just opening a door.

Make sure to foreshadow the theme of your story three times.

Rolling. eyes. FOREVER.

No, seriously, and that's not a phrase I use often. But for pity's sake, does he or she really think that "foreshadowing" the "theme" a specific number of times is somehow going to make him or her a storyteller?

That whole absolutism thing seriously makes me want to kick the absolutist. Give me characters I care about, yo. Tell me a story. Be real, be true. SHOW me something.

I'm not dissing people with a specific way of going about it - man, I wouldn't stand there and tell people who want to write to do it my way. I've got friends, good friends who are very good writers, who outline and research and then they outline some more. A couple of them, at least, won't even try to write without that level of detail and specificity.

And it works for them. I lift a glass in their direction and say, yowsa! Whatever it takes to tell the story.

Where I sit, though, it's way less about the characters talking to me, and a lot more about them talking to each other, and themselves, and how they process stuff.

I'm pretty sure that writing teacher is one of those for whom "theme" is the goal, rather than character or plot. I'm very tired of the attitude that a work that focused on character or story is somehow not as "literary" as things that are trying to show the "meaning" of life etc.

I'm very tired of the attitude that a work that focused on character or story is somehow not as "literary" as things that are trying to show the "meaning" of life etc.

And the thing is? There are so many great books with fabulous stories and characters that *do* have themes. Like Deb's recent books, for instance. And she doesn't have to hit anyone over the head with references to those themes, either, or imbed them symbolically -- they're organic, because they come out of what the characters are doing and feeling, in the story of the book.