My friend Wendy Rathbone and I worked hard during NaNoWriMo, to write each day and to reach our word count goals. And while I was writing about the the damp and rainy hinterlands of England, Wendy was writing the foggy and dramatic coastline around the jewel that is San Francisco.
Her newest novel, The Lostling, is just out on Amazon, and it is a wonderfully dramatic read that continues the story of Diego (the dark bad boy with impeccable taste) and Alec (the sweet boy who was found adrift at sea) that Wendy started in The Foundling and continued in None Can Hold the Dark.
Here is a quick peek at the cover:
I thought it might be a treat for readers to get some insight into Wendy’s thought process when reading a book, so I came up with some questions for her to answer. Naturally, I came up with far too many questions for her, so I’m posting the first half of them today, and will post the second half of them tomorrow. And, indeed, if you have any additional questions for her that I’ve not asked, feel free to drop her a line at her website.
And away we go!
Please tell me about your book, The Lostling.
The Lostling: Alec’s story is the third book in The Foundling trilogy, a male/male romance series. The first two books are from the point of view of Diego, the wealthy, underworld kingpin who finds Alec floating adrift on a raft at sea and rescues him. In those first two books we get to know Diego, but because Alec suffers from amnesia, we know very little about him except what Diego’s informants can dig up about him being the kidnapping victim of the sex-slave trade. The Lostling finally the questions of who Alec is, what he went through, and why.
What was the reason you wanted to continue the story you started in The Foundling and None Can Hold the Dark? Or had this been your plan all along?
As a writer, I am a terrible planner. I plan almost nothing ahead. The most I do when I have an idea are notes or poems exploring a theme or character that has hold of my mind. When/if I decide to write a story about that character I waste no time about it. I plunge right into his/her mind. If all is going well, a heat and fever comes over me and I write in that mode until the story is done.
I start telling myself the story I want to read. If I am lucky, the character(s) will take over and tell me their thoughts. This happened with Diego in The Foundling. An image of him, and a “voice,” came over me and I sat down and began his story just to entertain myself. I set out to write a short novel and not much more. What happened is that when I got to the end, I started thinking about questions that were brought up but never answered. I almost immediately started writing the sequel, None Can Hold the Dark, but due to travel for my business the book stayed on hold for months before I finally completed it a year later.
When it was finished, I thought that was it. I had no ideas for further development. The character of Alec remained a mystery in both books and in my mind. I thought that was okay. Not all mysteries are meant to be solved. Plus, whenever I tried to think about Alec from his point of view, I would get static. Any time I tried to “hear” his voice in my head beyond that static it would sound forced or contrived. I just let that go and moved on to writing Letters to an Android, an idea that had been haunting me. I was perfectly happy to let The Foundling end with two books.
But of course I wondered now and again about Alec. And so did my readers. Christina, the author of this blog, is one such reader. She asked me for a third book, although she never demanded it. It wasn’t until I was in the middle of yet another novel (a vampire novel) that out of blue I started to actually hear Alec begin talking in my head. I can’t even pinpoint why or how it began. But the voice was there, growing louder, and I was intrigued.
I thought for a moment I might put Alec on hold until I finished my vampire novel. But he would not allow this. I began to jot down his thoughts, as if transcribing a telepathic communication, and I was off and running. Because he is a very wounded character, it took a little while for him to build up momentum, and for him to keep yammering at me about this or that until he felt comfortable enough and safe enough to begin to go deeper. That was when his story exploded into my brain. About half-way through the novel he began to really remember specific things, and slowly he came to learn about himself, and so did I. Nothing was ever planned. The story unfolded in a natural sequence.
The only thing I ever wrote out of order was the ending paragraph of the book, which came to me very early on. The rest was a surprise. This is how I like to write. I want to be entertained. Why else do it? It’s such hard work to write, and if I’m not entertained I don’t see the point. Also, I feel if I’m not enjoying what I’m writing, my readers might be bored, too. I love to let my characters explore things and talk about inner thoughts and revelations they might have along the way. If they ramble on too long or it’s not pertinent to the story, I don’t let that worry me. I can always cut it out later. Allowing them to do that is what’s important to their development. I cannot develop characters in an outline. That just doesn’t work for me.
Which character was it easier to write, Diego or Alec?
What does Alec think about at night when the lights are out, or on long car drives with the radio turned off?
I think if he had a favorite song it might be something moody from Pink Floyd or something highly intelligent or poetic from Al Stewart or Kate Bush. His favorite book might be: The Count of Monte Cristo. His favorite movies? I think he’d like capers, like Oceans 11, Mission: Impossible, James Bond, that sort of thing.
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Thank you, Wendy! And tune in tomorrow for, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.