The Coffee Shop
~ Blog ~
The morning I started writing this book I
had fully planned on starting on a horror novel I had already plotted out, but
as I lay there this idea literally came to me out of nowhere, as all of my
ideas do. I remembered something I read a long time ago and thought how it
would make for a really great novel. As I lay there thinking on it, I started
tweaking the idea a few times and within a matter of minutes I had the plot for
The Coffee Shop.
I sat down and started writing it that
morning, and in nineteen days it was finished. I think that’s the fastest I
have written a book so far. This one was 85K when I finished. If I was aiming
for 50K I would have been done in 12 days, and I have written a 120K in four
weeks.
When I get into what I call a zone I
literally write all day, every day, until I can’t concentrate any more. To me
being in the middle of writing a book is very much like being in the middle of
reading one. I can’t wait to get to it, don’t want to stop, and can’t wait to find
out what will happen next.
Now you are probably thinking: “Wait a
moment. You are the author. Surely you know what is going to happen.” Well…yes
and no. I do know where I want the story to go, and what will happen. I have
the chapter thought out. But as to exactly what they will say or do, it
literally happens in the moment I am writing it. I have no idea what my
characters are going to say or do. I start off with my opening line and I know
how the other character will respond to it, what they will say, what they will
do, how they will react. Then I know how the first character will respond in
return to that. I literally have no idea what they are going to say in advance.
So for me it is very much like being in the middle of a book I am reading.
Sometimes my characters shock me. Now again you are probably wondering how that
can be? Well, as I have no idea what they are going to say there will be
moments in a scene where the unexpected happens, even for me the writer. I know
writers will set out to write one story and sometimes the story takes on an
entirely different path than they had intended. Or a side character suddenly
becomes much more important just out of nowhere within the development of the
scene. As the story is being written you go with the flow of what is being said
and done, and sometimes that takes you in a direction you hadn’t planned, and
sometimes that makes for an even better, or more interesting, story. It has
added complications and surprises you hadn’t planned for, but that make it more
exciting or shocking.
The story of The Coffee Shop has the main
character dreaming about a girl he has never met. Only he doesn’t realize that
until he wakes up. To him it is all very real. But that’s where it gets
interesting, for whom should he run into but the very girl from his dream. He
quickly realizes he has dreamed about a relationship with this girl five months
into his future. But as he interacts with her he says something different than
he did the first time in his dream. That night the dream picks up where it left
off and he is again five months into the future with Annie. Only things are different. Just small things,
but he remembers he made a comment about her book, and that one small comment has
shifted the timeline.
He tries to fix it and along the way
discovers certain things cannot be changed. And when you try to fix things you
might make them worse.
This is a story about a man trying to come
to terms with what has been dealt him, and how he tries to cope with what he
knows.
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