Learn as You Go

"It was broken. It was haunted. Just like her.

               But it had bones, and it had memories, and it had the ability to be something strong again. Just like her."

~Fix You

 

 

There's an old saying that no one ever learned how to ride a horse without falling off a few times. It's very true. I have the grass stains to prove it. Because, you could read every book, every magazine article, watch every instructional video in existence, and you'd still clutch at the pommel for balance the first time you slung your leg over a horse. Riding takes hours and hours and hours of practice, and even then, you never reach some imaginary plateau of talent; you could always be a better rider. There's always something new to learn. There's always more practicing to do.

 

The same is true of writing. You write and write and write, learning, growing, developing those unconscious skill sets that you can only acquire through repetition. Every finished project is another lesson learned. Sometimes, unfinished projects are our falls. And the more we write, the better we write, the less we fall - at least, that's my philosophy.

 

Fix You is complete! I'm hoping to announce that its on sale sometime next week...and announce the sale I have planned to celebrate the end (for now) of the Walker series. So now that those four books are in my rear view, I'm looking back on what I learned in the process.

 

My big take-away was about character development. This is a very character-driven series, and while writing the books, I really worked toward making those characters not just interesting, but likable too. I hope I succeeded, but either way, I'm going to have a hard time letting go of these characters; I'm attached! Maybe...one of these days...maybe even sooner than that...I'll revisit them.