When Real Life Ends Up in a Book

Well, I hit a milestone over the weekend. I'm about halfway through THE EARL'S ENGAGEMENT. There was a snag a last week with Rory and I had to think about where the story was going -- headed in an altogether different direction -- but it's been brought back around and coming along.

You see, Rory had an accident. The scene wasn't planned, never in the outline, but that's what happens when you write. Sometimes characters take on their own destiny. I won't give you all the details, (that's for you to read after the book comes out) but Rory fell off a ladder while twenty feet off the ground and was badly injured.

I had no intention of this scene at all -- until I fell off a ladder while working on my old house. No, I didn't fall twenty feet, and it wasn't exactly a fall, more like a slip and a jump off before I fell. But I landed funny and it hurt; jarred my whole body because it was on cement. You know when you do that, it starts at your feet and works its way up to your neck. It hurts. But more importantly it scared the living daylights out of me because I was alone. What if I had fallen off and broken my neck? I was downstairs, cell phone upstairs, and seven stairs between the two. Who would find me? That kind of scenario.

They say writers write from real life experiences. So there's one of mine. I'm not sure what will happen to Rory or Rosamund because I'm almost finished with the old house so there isn't too much more I have to do. No more ladder work anyway. Being halfway through the book, I think it might behoove me to just stick to the outline I had originally written. But then, characters do take on a life of their own, so you never know.

Perhaps I'll save the "snake in the lawn mower" experience for another book.