by mariejudson

Writing Magic

I don’t know if I’ve blogged about journaling. There’s another form of reflective writing I do: chatting and daily emails. Recently some of those propelled me into writing the next scene in my novel. The start of a novel, whether or not it’s in a series, can take some nudging, until the real flow has begun and each scene follows the last by general momentum. I’ve produced several scenes in the starting chapters of Xentu Secrets during my weekly writing prompts with my writing friend. That’s new and intrigues me! In a very different happenstance, a couple of weeks ago, my daughter asked me in a chat if I miss being called Ruthie, my childhood name.

I responded, “I think it’s like those private, sacred, family names in other cultures. I like very much to have the name said with fondness by old friends and family. I don’t want it as my out-front work or publishing name.” It was great to define that for myself. I wrote, “You know my name changes have troubled me.” She wrote back, “Name changes are your power, your bravery.” I thought that was fun. It also made me think about Yanda in my Lost Xentu series.

I was just going to write myself a note for later but the passion of a scene was building. “Kind of like sex,” I wrote in my journal. “There’s nothing that grabs the lead so much as getting ignited sexually.” When a scene is forming and it engages passion, writing it shouldn’t be put off or you may never find the fully formed seed again in quite the same way. Not every scene is going to have the same passion, of course, but in every spate of writing, I try to find the heat and write from there. A problem for Yanda that started in the first book was her fear of vulnerability. Here was a chance to further the progression. The thing is not to just advance the plotline. A character’s growth requires organic evolution; no step can be left out.

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