The focus on focus…

Okay…looking at Needletart’s blog (bless her bless her bless her!!!) the question seems to be, did I mean for that first chapter to be that unfocused?

The answer is…yes and no.

The whole book started from a short story that I wrote–it began with Cory in the gas station and ended with her and Adrian’s first kiss.

The end. No Mitch and Renny, no Green, no Faerie Hill.

And then I dropped out of the master’s course in creative writing (for which I wrote the story) to spend more time with my children, and decided to continue writing anyway.

And I wrote Green. And I LOVED Green just like I loved Adrian–completely, without any reservation in my soul, for both his flaws and his starts and his myriad perfections.

And they had to meet.

Bringing them all together–that was the hard part. I wanted to keep much of it through Cory’s eyes–she was the voice of the lost woman, and the men had both found each other years ago. That Green had to speak was a given–he was much too powerful not to. That Adrian had his own voice and his own chapters was a surprise–one that broke my heart, because, well, his destiny had been planned.

So yes, some of the first chapters (until Green’s entrance, mostly) is a little like a REALLY LONG prologue–but I could not cut those chapters to save my life, because that was where Adrian and Cory met and fell in love, and their courtship was too painful to just excise, and Cory’s self-awareness too precious and dearly come by to just…change. Sometimes characters do that–what you had planned for them isn’t what they do at all, and what they do instead is just too wonderful–it would hurt something vital in me to make it different.

So I didn’t.

It moves me more than words that my words have moved you all:-)