Characters That Won’t Go Away

To other writers I am sure this is a common experience, I have characters that won’t go away. They invade my day, no matter what I am doing and wake me up to make me see scenes from their lives played out like a film. Great I hear you say. Well it would be if they didn’t act things out too fast for me to record the action and I’m now starting to suffer from sleep deprivation. Is this why my writing tutor always looks so tired? How I wish I could capture a fraction of the emotion I feel with these characters and the expressions of their faces and of course the feel of his body when he holds her. Maybe they are spirits from a previous world or just over the membrane in a parallel universe, because it all feels so vivid and real. One thing is for sure – they are not going to let me rest until their story is written.

Meanwhile, the New Voices competition at www.romanceisnotdead.co.uk rumbles on. I think it is amazing that over 300 writers have submitted a chapter. My fragile confidence is growing a little with the supportive comments about Rosie’s Mystery Man. (Incidentally it isn’t this book that is haunting me). I have made new friends and joined the support group which is great fun – we are currently letching over photographs of potential hero templates. I have enjoyed reading the many and varied stories, although realise now that I will not get through them all. One slight problem is that my laptop died and took with it my password safe. Consequently I can’t log into New Voices as I can’t remember the password. I am also suffering with eye strain after staring at the computer for so long. What fun though. It has definitely raised the energy for romance stories – I am seeing potential plot lines everywhere, but guess I’d better get back to the characters I mentioned at the beginning or I won’t get any sleep again tonight!