Up to 88K on Ikarias 3, Balanced Scales. Wrapping up the third of the series is kind of a disenchantment, a loss. I know how it turns out, I've ideas for the 4th in the series, it's like the E ticket ride is over... this adventure, this year-long trek with old friends and new enemies is almost at an end. I will see them again but we'll all be older, a little more chary, a bit rougher and less shiny.
Writers make characters, and they, in turn, influence the writer. Ask any author and they will defend their literary children, no matter if they're good, evil, dull-witted, ugly, pathetic, psychotic, or even non-human, i.e. the old homestead that factors in a flashback, or the little town that sets the pace for the book, or that bite of pecan pie and a quarter cup of hazelnut coffee that waits for someone who's not coming back.
Characters do things I didn't plan on, they have a life and mind and heart of their own. 'They're just fiction, fantasy, not real, in your mind' people say, but then, am I not the creation of a greater mind? What am I doing this for? Me first, it's something I need to do, it's what I do.
The idea of knowing a writer is glamorous, the reality isn't. They have imaginary friends most of the non-writers have dropped by the time they enter puberty. Writers have other worlds that often prove vastly preferable to the real one.
Writers do need to balance their time. Most of us have other jobs we do so we have the luxury of doing what we love in the intersticies of our day. Only the top 1% of published writers can do that and live from it alone. The rest of us need to cook, clean, take care of the important people in our lives, get an oil change for the car, shop for groceries, change the litterbox, get a haircut, sleep.
The siren song of stories needing to be told, creeps back. We're tied to the mast, straining for more while those around us put their back into the oars, stuff wax in their ears, and pull us away.
We may never hear again, but we do remember, and we will write them down.
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