Working on a proposal today, writing up the sample chapter, and I nail the paragraph that nails the POV character.
“This wasn’t a job. I was on leave. Medical leave, officially. “Get your shit together†leave, unofficially. Which probably maybe explained why I was out there, at oh-dark o’clock, sitting on my numb ass watching shadows pass in front of my scope. My shit was not together.”
The words were not planned, I didn’t have any idea where the paragraph would end when I started typing. But once I came to the last word, I knew that it was right, it fit, it was the POV character’s headspace, and voice, and personality, all right there for the first time.
And that’s the moment when you know that a book has legs. It may never be sold, it may never even be written, but in some fashion, somehow, it already exists, and is just waiting for the writer to, well, get her shit together. Â You’ve got to trust the work, and trust yourself.
(for the record, the genesis of this project is entirely and absolutely
lilithsaintcrow‘s fault.)