I love planning new novels. I think I might like the planning stages more than anything else. I love figuring out the characters and their history. How those histories will make them interact together. Where the story is going. Why things are going to happen the way they do. And even how the hell I'm going to make the things that need to happen work when all of a sudden I realize that my character actually might not do that very important plot point.
Figuring out those characters and plots is something that I love to do. I talk excitedly about it to anyone who will listen, even though half of them aren't writers, and therefore couldn't care less about what I'm saying. In fact, I've had more than one person give me that look. The look that tells me they think I might actually be a little crazy. (Other writers will know this look. It seems to be a hazard of the job.)
Some parts of it, though, can be a little hard to get through. For example, the character bibles.
Now these aren't something that every writer out there does. In fact, most of the writers I know don't do them. I find them really helpful when I'm writing, because I can glance at them quickly if I forget an important fact about one of my characters (like their hair or eye colour)
Honestly, I don't use much of the rest of the bible during the writing process, but I find the rest of it really helpful before I start writing. The bibles help me to truly get a grasp of each of my characters. I figure out their motivations. Their goals. Their quirks. And, most importantly (at least to me) their history.
The only problem is that I figure out their story, and then I don't want to actually put it into words on the page. (Yeah, I know, I'm a writer. That's exactly what I want to do with my life.) I think it's just that these are scenes and information about the character that I don't get to actually write. They all happen before my story took place. So while I have all these ideas about their history, and love the insights these histories give me into my characters, I find myself a little disconnected with them. I didn't take part in any of the decisions they made. It's frustrating.
So, instead of continuing with the bible and forcing myself to get through those histories that I love but don't want to write, I do other things to keep myself busy. Things like watching television shows that I 'need' to get caught up on. Or writing a blog post (even though I am, technically, supposed to post one today. I told myself I would at least finish the bible I'm working on. I didn't...)
Procrastination is an old friend of mine. I perfected it in school, and we haven't grown apart at all since I graduated. In fact, since deciding that I want to become a writer, we've become even closer than we've ever been. We're like those annoying best friends you see on the street, giggling and laughing like the world is a joke. The ones who buy the necklaces that break apart just so they can show the world how close they are. How there's nothing in the world that can come between them. Because their friendship is just that strong.
I think I proved my point.
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