I just sent back the proofs for The Other Side of Winter (Santuario 2), and am otherwise wringing words for Black Box from the keyboard. I’m about halfway through chapter 1.
Getting into the heads of new characters is like putting on new shoes. No matter how often you’ve seen them in the window or even handled them before, when you first slip in, they feel stiff and weird and alien. It takes a few miles of walking in them before they’re comfortable.
Same with characters. Even though these two have popped up in the previous book, writing them as POV characters is different. I have to consciously think about which way they would think/feel, and what they would do. It’s like a naggy tag in the neck of your shirt. Not actively painful, but ‘there’ in a way that’s distracting. It makes for slooow writing. Over the years I’ve learned to just write it anyway. That’s what rewrites are for; by which time the characters have become a second skin. Can’t wait for the feeling.
