I'm not crazy!

Sometimes when I tell friends or family about a particular story I'm working on or my writing process they give me strange looks. Sure sometimes my story may not be about something that interests them or maybe they just got bit by a mosquito, but more often than not I'm pretty sure they think I'm crazy. I have a good friend, who is obviously bewildered by how invested I am in my characters lives. When I tell her how my main character is taking on a life of his own, or won't do what I had intended him to, or how he does something unexpected, my friend makes a polite comment about how it is my book and my characters can do what I want them to do. Which I retort with: "No they can't. It's not in their nature. I can't make them do something they wouldn't do."

You can see where I'm going with this, sometimes I even begin to think I'm crazy. I have learned not to take these comments personally. Everyone has a different vocation. Just as I don't know the first thing about changing the oil in my car, how to clean a weapon, or what that thingy-ma-jig part that didn't fix in the whatz-it was for; I can't (and don't) expect my friends and family to 'get' how characters form inside a writer's head. However, it's always nice to know that I'm not alone. While reading through the Complete Handbook of Novel Writing, I was relieved to read someone else say that well developed characters will begin to make their own choices and surprise the writer. When I am writing, it seems like the pages write themselves and I am just along for the ride. Even when i go back and read it, I am still surprised. This is what I truly enjoy about writing, the mentality of creation.