It's starting

It's starting.

The characters of the novel I have just begun are beginning to live in my head.

Daphne came by. It was 4 a.m. when I couldn't sleep. She's the wife of the new British Counsel in Boston. She doesn't belong in my head. My novel, with the working title Lexington, takes place in 1775. This is modern times.

Characters have forced their way into my novels before. Brenda, a journalist, was a device I used to help me understand my four main characters in Day Care Moms, soon to be published. She ended up taking charge of the story when she wasn't suppose to be there at all.

And in Murder in Caleb's Landing, a woman who dropped in for coffee became a major character, a symbol. Her activities reinforced the theme of the book.

Some writers outline their work in detail before starting to write, controlling the development of the work. I am not one of those writers. The characters control me.

During the entire process from the first page to the last of the upmty umph draft, my characters are with me. They pop up when I am in bed at night, in the car, walking down the street. They tell me what they will and won't do.

As for Lexington, James Holloway/Hathaway, I haven't decided yet on the last name, has made his entrance into my life. He's a baker who has just lost his wife and new born daughter. He has blue eyes and sandy hair. He lives over the same bakery where his parents, grandparents, great grandparents and beyond lived.

It will come to me how he will end up as redcoat in Boston before the American Revolution. He will tell me when he wants me to know whether I'm in the car, bed, at a table...