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Albert Camus

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Writing a Writer - Unfinished by Amy Snyder

Good and bad, these characters are part of her and Mirabelle discovers she needs to both fix and finish them before they destroy her life, her sanity, and her marriage.


Description:

Mirabelle is a writer who just can't finish any of the stories she starts. When her twins leave home for college, they take with them Mirabelle’s sense of identity. As she strives to adjust to her empty nest she is visited by someone unexpected: a character from the very first novel she ever attempted to write.

Characters from all of her unfinished works begin to materialize in her home, in her car, at her job. They talk, yell, and some even throw things at her. Mirabelle can see them, smell them, touch them and though she knows they’re not real, she can’t help but engage them. She created them, after all. They become part of her daily life and she finds herself alternating between hiding them from and sharing them with her almost-always-doting husband, Alex.

Some of Mirabelle’s characters are like good friends, encouraging her to finish something she’s started. Others manipulate her for their own needs and story lines. Good and bad, these characters are part of her and Mirabelle discovers she needs to both fix and finish them before they destroy her life, her sanity, and her marriage.

GUEST POST
Writing a Writer

UNFINISHED is the story of a writer who can’t seem to finish her stories until her characters appear to her to force her to finish them. 

Everything that happens to Mirabelle is because she is a writer. Writing is where she finds her solace and herself after her children leave for college. She processes her feelings by subconsciously assigning characters to them and giving them a voice and a challenge to face. 

The fact that Mirabelle is a writer was a profound influence on her life. It gave her a place to go when she was lost. And the journey she goes on with her characters saves her. 

The best thing about having a writer as a main character as that writers have immense power. They can literally create worlds out of thin air. When things got difficult for Mirabelle, she created a world where she could fight her own demons and learn how to win. 

As a writer, I’ve always been drawn to stories where the main character was a writer. Writers are fascinating people whose imaginations are capable of creation out of thin air. They create landscapes to reside in. Villains to torture them. Heroes to save them or teach them how to save themselves. 

The challenge of writing a writer is not to abuse that power, to create writer characters that are also intuitive and sensitive. That are human. 

About the author: 
Amy Snyder began writing when she realized the strange things that happened in her imagination were far more interesting than the things that happened in her real life. After earning her degree in Radio, Television, and Film from Northwestern University, she worked at a financial brokerage house, a nationally published magazine, an advertising agency, and most recently, an elementary school as a Math Tutor, Substitute Teacher, and Library Paraprofessional. 

But she’s always been a writer.

Amy lives in Glastonbury, Connecticut with her husband, two teenage children, and two cats. While she has been known to talk out loud to the characters she’s writing, she hasn’t had an actual hallucination…yet.

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