Just conversation

Writers are weird.

We're not as sweet as you think we are.

But you knew that already, right? I mean, who else do you know who washes up the breakfast dishes and then settles down to finish plotting a murder that they started the night before? And if the answer to that is not 'Only a writer.' then please do not introduce me to any of your friends.

As you can guess, I am having one of my periodic bouts of 'Where does all this stuff come from?' On Monday I was writing a conversation - yes, writing, don't faint, it may not last and the results might not actually go anywhere, but I was putting pen to paper.

Anyway - this conversation. Only a bread and butter thing, intended to pass on a little information in a way that wasn't an info dump. Matt, our hero, on leave on the Welsh coast, recovering from a nasty encounter with some very bad people, (Which has nothing to do with the current story. Or it doesn't at the moment - but who knows?) is talking on the phone to Zac, a colleague in London, asking him for information.

It could have gone just like this.
'Hi, this is Matt, can you send me all you have on XXX'
'No problem. I'll get on it now. Take care.'

Nothing wrong with that. But these two are colleagues, working for an off the grid organisation that rights wrongs and generally does heroic stuff and in the past they have been through various circles of hell together, so naturally they started to spark off each other - jibes, insults, jokes. And Zac would never, ever, in two million years, tell Matt to take care, although you and I know he thinks it. Matt might tell Zac, which shows the difference between them.

So there I am, eavesdropping on these two hot guys. I hope they are hot. I think they are. And at the moment, I'm the only one who has a say. (Hold on - Emma, the heroine, says she thinks Matt is hot too, but complicated. And she doesn't even know yet what he does for a living!) Thank you, Emma, for your input.

And while all this was going down on the paper, I realised how clearly both their personalities were coming through, the contrast between them, and in particular how that reflects on the relationship Zac will have with his heroine, Alice, when he finally gets his own book.

And all that was lurking inside my head.

Writers are weird.