A Happy Friday to you all! Cheers to wrapping up a productive week. Last week when I left you, I was up in the air about what time of day I should carve out for writing. I’m happy to report that I was able to get up at 6am and write for an hour and a half before work. (4 out of 5 days). One thing became very clear to me: writing before work makes me super energized for the day.

However, it wasn’t all that simple. On Sunday night as I was winding down for bed, thinking about my current project and what I would write, something unexpected happened. A new character showed up. A character that doesn’t belong anywhere in the current world I’m writing in or in the genre. You can imagine that I wasn’t too happy about that at first…

It’s been a really long time since I’ve been hit by a character like that, but to be honest, I went to sleep hoping that she wouldn’t be there when I woke up in the morning. By now you can probably guess that she was waiting for me and I quickly warmed up to the burst of inspiration. The reality is, there’s nothing better than when the words are pouring out of you. This new character had a powerful message to share and I became intrigued.

I spent the entire week working on this new story and plotting what it might contain. Completely consumed by the new setting and characters, the words were flying onto the page. Unfortunately, that burst of inspiration was accompanied by a massive wave of guilt. What about my other story? What about THOSE characters?

*insert ten deep breaths*

I decided it’s okay. At this point, I’m not quite sure if this new story is going to go anywhere or if the flow will last. I have no intentions of abandoning my other story and have since explained that to my characters so they aren’t worried. We wouldn’t want that, right?

It’s been really fun to plot and get excited about a genre that I’ve never written before. I felt it was appropriate to follow the new character, follow the flow of inspiration, and see where it takes me. What would you do if a new character from a different genre showed up with a lot to say? Would you run the other way or would you sit and listen?

Let me know on Twitter or Instagram @AWritersWay.

Thanks for reading. Meet me here next week for more rambles and such.

-Christine