Possession

Sometimes a character just takes you over! it's a sort of "possession"

I completed the novel "Archie" (Amazon Book id B009V3V5L0) some time ago and left the way open for a sequel to be written. I had a rough idea of the storyline for the sequel, but had it on the back burner.

The other day, while in the middle of two different novels, my awareness was filled with a narration from a character called "Percy". He is one of the two main characters in the novel "Archie". Suddenly "Percy" was narrating the start of the follow-up novel to me. I could hear his style of expression (old-fashioned, late-Victorian) in my mind and he became so "alive" that I had to take a break from my other projects and write down what "Percy" was dictating!

The words just flowed into my word processor software. In no time at all Chapter One - some 2,000+ words, had written itself, with myself as a sort of spectator.

Sometimes the act of writing is almost magical, where the "author" is simply an intermediary, an editor, if you like. This is the best kind of writing in my opinion and produces the best quality work. Facts in the flow of the novel just automatically tie themselves together. As the writer, you actually get realisations along the lines of "Ah, so that is why such and such happened earlier in the novel".

It's a sort of possession where the "muse" or creative agent takes you over. The words spill out faster than you can type them and you appear to just be the physical agency used to produce the book, the spell checker, the grammar correcter, the editor.

Interestingly, the new novel "Percy" is a homoerotic story of occult possession. What happened to me, which I have attempted to describe, above, seems to be an example of Life imitating Art, or is it Art imitating Life?

I don't know when the new novel "Percy" will be completed, that's probably not up to me! Meanwhile if you haven't read it yet, "Archie" is available.

All the best, Richard.