Now, that wasn't the first idea I ever had. In fact, I'd been writing 'books' for years. One after another. I never ended one without finishing it; but sometimes I finished it without ending it, if you know what I mean. Eventually I realized the reason for this was that I didn't give myself enough time to develop the plot before writing. I'd just plunge right in.

Don't get me wrong. I am not, and most likely never will be, the sort of person who plans a book in detail before writing it. I can't do that because I have to allow for evolution all during the writing process. But what I came to understand is that while details of the plot are not important, details of the characters are.

And so I got to know my characters well before beginning to write about them. I would never sit down and think about them; that would make me feel pressured, and my mind would rebel from that. But when I was doing things that didn't take all of my concentration I would think about my characters. Sometimes I would think about them doing whatever I was doing, if it was something that fit. It didn't matter if in the book they actually ever did that or not; it helped me get to know them.

Because, although it's generally viewed that imaginary characters are not real people, I must think of them as if they are. In order to establish them within my imagination, I have to pretend that they exist outside of it; and most of all, I have to know enough that I can write with detail but yet have something more, something that isn't on the page. I think that's important in a book, that backlog of information in the author's mind; I think the reader can sense that and enjoy the book more for it, and I think that the author can write better when they know things beyond what actually adds well to a book. An excess of information in a book makes things confusing; but you must write from either real life or a convincing simulation of real life, and the world is riddled with extra information.

And so I got to know my characters. I got to know the world they lived in. I even created a handful of scenarios, some of which I used and some of which I didn't. And then I wrote. I've been writing the same book for several years (whereas previously I could never stay interested in one for more than a month) and am now nearing the end. It's the best book I've ever written, although it's my hope that it won't be the best book I ever write. I've still got a lot of developing my literary talent to do before I write something truly good; but I'm now confident that someday I will.