I like how you refer to your novels almost as if they are living people doing their own thing. I've found this concept almost impossible to explain to friends who don't write. They don't have a clue when I try to tell them that sometimes the characters just take control and my plot ideas be damned! They will have their way no matter how I try to direct them in another. Looking back at my first novel, The Pride which I've not picked up and read in at least 6 years, it was a woefully different experience than all others that have followed it. I was in a completely different mind-set when writing that and it has, so far, been the one and only fantasy/other-wordly novel I've written. After 6-7 rejections I put it away and gave up despite family and friends who continue to ask me when I'm going to get that particular one published. I'd really have to go over it again and see what it feels like after all this time. Maybe there's hope for it someday.

Thanks for this post, Josh, makes me feel somewhat less freaky and I know I'm in good company when I see my characters taking control while I sit almost helplessly at the keyboard wondering what they will make me type next.

V.