Characters Becoming Real

I'm thrilled to post the cover for my soon to be released ebook, Old Enough To Know Better.Actually, this isn't the one I'd planned to publish first as an indie author, and here's my story.

For the last two months, I've been having so much fun that it's insane! What have I been doing? Writing. Writing with excitement and passion, and I owe it all to my decision to become an indie author.

I'm finishing up what will now be my first ebook. I'd already written one for epublishing, but I got this bright idea to write a "prequel" to my trilogy The Good, The Bad, and The Girly. Why? It's either because I'm crazy, or I was having so much fun with the characters that I couldn't bear to end it.

If you're not a writer, you may think that is a crazy statement to make. However, if you're a writer then you know exactly what I mean.

Quoting Myself

As I was creating this cast of characters for the trilogy (gee, guess with a prequel that would be a quartet?), I came across something I wrote for Written Wisdom a couple of years ago. It was all about accepting yourself and your decisions that created the life you live.

Ironically, what I wrote two years ago is exactly the theme of Old Enough To Know Better, my prequel to The Good, The Bad, and The Girly Trilogy.

What I Wrote That Day

Florida Scott-Maxwell in The Measure of My Days, 1968, wrote: "You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality."

My Thoughts

Not only are you fierce with reality, but once you own your actions, your past and your present, you are then in a position to be self-actualizing. That's when you can create real change in yourself and your life. Claim the events of your life – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and you begin living honestly.

If you haven't been able to achieve what you wanted in the past, maybe it's time to look at your past and acknowledge the decisions you made that have led you to where you are - and who you are. Then look at the present and see what you can do differently to make the changes you want. We can always do more, be more, because we can become more.

I ended my post with this statement: "We should always be like an unfinished novel - a work in progress that grows richer and more complex with experience and the passage of time."

Takeaway Truth

Acceptance. Change. Growth. That's what people must do in real life, and that's what fictional characters must do by the end of a story.