Murder

I LOVED listening to the guest speaker for the writing group.  Oh my goodness.  Cris Cunningham was a homicide detective for nearly seventeen years.  And yes, I write romance, but I am also writing fantasy, paranormal, and erotic.  I can slide murder into all of those.  👀

She went over two cases start to finish.  I was fixated because I love to know things, and I will use some of it in a book.  Not only that, she's a character, herself.  I wanted to dive all up in her grey matter and poke around.  I want to know what makes people tick.  

I had a young man ask me at a Writer's Panel how I felt killing characters.  At the time, I only had one under my belt.  And truthfully?  It felt odd.  He referenced Stephen King who advised "kill your darlings."

Since then?  Well.  I've offed some characters.  Truthfully?  I cried.  I cried so hard while typing it, I gave myself a headache.  We want readers attached to these wonderful characters, but the truth is that they are our children.  We birthed them.  Raised them.  We LOVE them.  Even the assholes.  And they will continue to be a part of us long after their story ends.  

Part of me wishes I was cold and callous and could kill characters with no guilt and no tears.  But I can't.  It's traumatic, quite frankly.  

Now I have all sorts of ways and means at my disposal.  That's great, right?  😐

Always writing*

...and now I'm plotting some murdering