After I finished writing the first draft of Alway Faithful, I was so jazzed about the idea of creating a story from scratch and becoming the novelist I had always dreamed of being, I immediately started writing a new story. While I remember the precise moment Always Faithful was born, I don't really remember how The Way Home came about. I think I started out with only a vague idea about someone coming home to a small town after being away for a long time.
I started writing with no particular end in mind. I didn't even have an outline or character sketches for my main characters. I simply sat down at my computer one morning about 4:30 a. m. and started writing. The opening scene, with Bessie and Pete sitting at the kitchen table the evening of their mother's funeral, played out in my head almost like watching a movie. The rest of the story emerged over the following weeks as though it already existed and was revealing itself to me scene by scene. All I did was write it down.
Writing the story was kind of a thrill ride because I was just following along as the story told itself to me. I love the result, but I can't take much credit for it.
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Meredith
I think that's the way to do it, at least for some authors. If you knew what was going to happen, why would you bother writing the story at all? When I wrote my novel last year, discovery was the most thrilling aspect of the adventure.
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