Kay sent an interesting link to an interview with writer Anne Tyler. The whole interview is good, but I was particularly fascinated by the way she works on a novel:
“My work goes in two parts. The first part is the story, with my characters talking and surprising. But I still do’t know what it’s about, or what it means. The second part comes when I read it back, and suddenly it seems as if someone else is telling me the story, and I say “now I see” and then I go all the way back and drop references to what it means…It isn’t mine until I see what my subconscious is up to.”
Sounds like the girls in her basement get to party all the time. What I took from this interview is not to be too worried about my characters, one of whom at this point (still working on first chapter) has had several different jobs. I think she’s gonna end up as a tarot reader, though. Her other jobs were: travelling poet, restaurant owner, and etiquette columnist for a small community newspaper. None of these quite worked for me. Then I hit on the tarot reader, and it resonated. Possibly because I’m a tarot reader myself (although not for money) and I won’t have to research, except maybe immerse myself in Jung and Tarot by Sallie Nichols, which will be a huge pleasure.
But nothing’s written in stone here. Like Tyler, I’m just going to let my characters keep “talking and surprising” and when they’re finished I’ll read what I wrote and hope that, also like Tyler, I’ll get that “now I see” feeling.