Evil Writer Is Evil

I'm relieved to report that the writing is going better than last week. I'm still only inching along, but I keep moving forward, and there's less of the loathing.

I'm enjoying myself, actually. My narrator is in a state of complete denial about the bad things he's doing, and he's built up elaborate justifications to excuse himself for his faults. He's quite good self-delusion, due to years of practice. This turns out to be a lot of fun to write.

So I'm sitting here writing sentences like, "That was why the past months had been so difficult," and I'm giggling maniacally to myself because I'm imagining a reader who will scream at the book, "No, you idiot, that's not the reason, and you've chosen the worst possible solution to the problem!" (Trust me, it's all terribly clever with context.)

I do hope readers will be engaged enough to scream at the book. A while back I wrote about how I came to accept that this character is and should be unlikable, and he's not getting any more endearing. Personally, I have a lot of pity for him, but I don't know if any readers will experience that. Maybe I only feel sorry for him because I keep making him do such awful things.

I can't help it. Being cruel to my characters is just so much fun.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Jennifer R. Hubbard talks about reading between the lines: "Writers have a point of view, an agenda. They may lie, misremember, propagandize, use false flattery. They may make careless mistakes or may deliberately cover something up. They may omit things that are common knowledge at the time."