Laurie Perez
Sep 6, 2018 · 1 min read

So true, Linda! Getting “past the nonsense” is essential. That’s the number one reason writing a novel requires so much time — you have to allow space for preconceptions about the characters and what they’re experiencing to dissolve into the truth of the story.

In the long gap I described between the first chapters and the final stretch, that’s exactly what I was doing. I hit a wall in the story. I couldn’t see past it because I thought I knew where it was supposed to be going. Those years were initially frustrating, but never idle — the novel never stopped nagging me to break that wall down and follow through. Ultimately, I gave up on trying to write within a plot structure and let the main character keep a journal. He rambled about anything and everything whether or not it related directly to the context of the book. Waking routinely at 4am to let him spill thoughts onto the page eventually paid off. The rest of the novel filled in once I let go and let the characters do their thing.

Laurie Perez

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Author of The LOOK of Amie Martine http://mybook.to/the-look | "wholly original and full of the unexpected" | “a fantastical trip” | "It is luminous"