(edited 2019 June 24)
It’s a well-known, veritably trite truism for fiction; once the characters begin to take over and interact in the story setting, the writer “only” has to take their dictation and write. In Adventure--‘s case, this process began with fountain pen and lined notebook paper. Part of the reason was to be “pure” (many famous novelists wrote in longhand) and part was the situation of being a hunt-and-peck typist driving a worn, rough, old Underwood portable typewriter. Manual, of course.
That fountain pen wore out as pages generated and years passed where writing was done in snippets often no longer than 5 minutes of “free time.” The Adventure— story concept, scenes, settings, characters, action, details filled out. Sometimes they were revelations “from beyond.” Others were carefully scripted and outlined.
The fountain pen after that and the one after that wore out too. A Christmas gift of an Olivetti manual portable typewriter generated a few thousand pages in the next several years, before it irreparably broke. Club newsletters, magazine articles, bits in newspapers…James Hood slowly learned how to write and the process was by no means painless.
Marriage, children, job, home remodeling, fixing things, cash flow…these comprised the wannabe-author’s real life, which needed to be actively lived.
Giving up on writing what felt like an ever-expanding, ever-more-complex novel concept with all-but-infinite sequel potential, loomed as a bad idea. Very bad. Adventure— could be this writer’s winning grand jackpot lottery ticket.
Besides that, Adventure–‘s characters were metaphorical stalkers, intruders, door-to-door salespeople, evangelists, telemarketers; they would not leave this writer alone. They demanded their stories be told.
Continuing to gnaw away at the story felt sensible. Mature. Adult. A good gamble. Besides, the characters kept up their constant annoying pressure. the old fiction writer’s truism was true.
So, real life was attended to. Many of you know precisely what that entails. Many, many pages of notes were kept, though, as the characters, “continued to tell their stories” to the writer.
But Adventure— and writing would not go away. So, the “writing hobby” received tidbits of available time. Sometimes only 5 minutes a week.Other times, whole days-off and many, many late nights.
Moral of the truism about characters “telling their stories?”
There are two published novels bearing this authors name. Success through relentless perseverance. By the writer and the characters.
There will be a section about many of those characters, individually, in this blog, soon.
JAMES HOOD 