Writing a novel can make you feel crazy … but I’m in so deep there’s no way I can stop until I finish this thing. But it will definitely NOT get done in a month.

Here’s how it feels for me. One minute I’m pouring cereal into a bowl for one of my kids. The cereal is going into the bowl, and I’m watching it go in, but my mind is thinking about the title of my book. Something’s not right; the rhythm’s off … it’s just not working.

Then!

I’m pouring the milk, and the perfect title comes, except it’s not just one title, it’s the whole series — three books. Then I’m turning around to get the spoons, but I’m also dying for a sheet of paper to write the titles down before they slip away.

I find a sticky pad and write them down. Then my son wants to read what I wrote. Should I let him? Will he think I’m weird? I show it to him. Then I explain, “These are the titles of the children’s books I’m writing.”

He reads them, and asks, “What are you packing in my lunch today?”

*sigh*

I’m not crazy. Really, I’m not. I’m just realizing that the mental energy behind plotting a novel has nothing to do with words. At this stage, it’s all ideas. It’s the characters. Are readers going to care about my characters? Enough to hang with them a whole book? And then another and another?

That’s what matters. The plot is secondary to the characters. It’s taken me two weeks to start getting to know my characters. How am I supposed to know what they’ll do if I don’t even know them?

But it’s coming along. I can’t go back now. On Monday, I had a phone interview with an author I totally admire. I’ll be posting it here soon. We chatted for nearly an hour, and I almost forgot that I was supposed to be listening instead of talking.

I held onto her every word. That night, at dinner, I showed my kids her book, and her picture. I said, “While you were at school today, this is what I was doing. I talked to this nice lady who writes books. She writes stories like you write at school, except when she writes a story, it’s read by millions of people around the world, in different languages.”

They seemed to be listening. Holding that book up, I felt like I had a friend, a kindred spirit. Another person who thinks about book titles while she’s pouring cereal. Who grabs for a notepad along with the spoons.

Like I said, I’m in deep.

Here are a couple of good resources for novel-writers, in case you’re in deep too:

Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method (Hat tip to Scribblings by Blair for passing along the link.)

How to Write a Novel in 100 Days (These little posts are full of choice morsels from famous novelists — very inspiring.)

Robin Lee Hatcher guest blogged for Novel Journey a few days ago about characterization. Hope you can read it — she just published her … um … 50th book and had some great things to say, including this:

We are all the sum total of what has happened to us in the past. We behave as we do because of what happened to us last month, last year, and when we were children.

If I know my characters intimately, if I know that when Sarah was five she was in a runaway wagon and that when she was nine she saw an actor fall off the stage and die, then I will know how she will react when certain things happen to her in my novel. Her actions will ring true because she will not behave out of character. I am aware of her history and her motivations.

Of all the tools that I use as a novelist, writing first person autobiographies of my characters is the most vital. When I come to know my characters intimately, then my readers can know them that way, too.

Robin Lee Hatcher is also a blogger. Another mentor, I see.