Feeding the Fish

Apart from feeding the fish - I just love this little widget - I have been feeding my novel. Scrawled words in the A4 moleskine notebook are starting to find their way into the laptop again. See the picometer on the right to see the way it's crept silently upwards after months of languishing.

Of course, the exodus from the moleskine isn't a direct thing. Words have a habit of changing as they move around, and they leave some of their number behind and gather in others I had no mind to include. But the wonderful thing is Precarious is swelling again, pinking under the skin, back to life. And I am deeply excited.

Yesterday, I had an epiphany about the motivation of the main character - I weary of novels and films where the character's motivation is always grounded in their life's experiences - bad and they act bad, good and they act good - you know the drill. In The Blue I let the reader decide whether the way the characters acted was entrenched in their natures or wrenched from them as a result of what befell them. I still don't know myself but I have my suspicions. For Precarious, I wanted something else to shape why my character is a precarious person in terms of her identity - and yesterday I got it.

The idea had been forming after a chance remark made by a customer in the bookshop the other day. One of those comments which spills with story and you long to know more. But the customer had to leave before I could get more out of her. Little did she know she left the story trailing behind her, and I caught the end of it, pinched it off and put it in my pocket.It is simply the most perfect reason for how my character - Nicola - acts. Now I can start laying out the clues. The first one was laid this morning ... a woman comes into the shop (a dress shop in the novel) and ...

I think I'll leave it there.

Oh, and if you haven't worked it out yet, click on your cursor to feed the fish.