What to try when your character isn’t talking to you. (They don’t care about anyone else anyway.)

1. Scream.

2. Close the file and walk away. It usually takes three weeks to a month before I grab my subconscious by the collar and drag it back.

3. Scream some more.

4. Kick things.

5. Cast nasty aspersions on character. (For this novel in particular: Your mother sucks goat balls!)

6. Open empty file and stare.

7. Rip hair out.

8. Play Echo Bazaar.

8. Channel character and stare at empty file some more.

9.  Repeat steps three through seven. Twice is good. Sometimes thrice is better.

10. Heave a sigh and start writing. Realize the character is denying she knows what she wants. Close file.

11. Reopen file. Force fingers to type and keep typing like this:

I don’t know what I want. I mean, I want Kalim back, and I want things to be the way they were before. I want to remember when I truly believed that the Masters had our welfare in mind and whatever decisions they made, they made out of goodness and the knowledge of what was best for us. And now… well I don’t believe they know anything other than what’s best for them.

All of them. Even Bashak. He’s sitting there cowering because he doesn’t want what happened to Kalim to happen to him.

Me? I’m not scared.

Well, not much. What will be, will be, you know? Although I’m not going to sit here and wait. No, I think it’ll be better if I make alternate plans. Like get to another monastery, long enough to get a tattoo of my own. I wouldn’t touch any here.

Although Master Dathri’s? Maybe. He seems mild enough, even though he has the most tattoos and power. But they’d never match up a man and a woman. That just isn’t done. Maybe in an emergency, although I bet if there were no other choice, they’d just patch it onto a first level instead. So what if they get another up the ladder?

What do I want? I want to get away from here. I can’t ever go back home, I know, but I want to leave. And the only way to do that is to take a tattoo—because only the firsts get to ever leave. The seconds are too valuable. I can’t take the Lady—they wouldn’t want to keep me around with her inside me. I’ve seen how relieved Bashak is after she leaves. He’s almost scared of her, and she doesn’t have any power over him at all. Why can’t he see that?

12. Pick through the litter of excuses and extract the little I got to nail down her character arc. What she wants, and she doesn’t quite get that she wants, is to abandon them all and leave. I think she’ll be looking for a way out of the monastery, and if that means by ship, then that’s just what she’ll get. At least she won’t be hanging around waiting for someone to rescue her.

ETA: #s 7 and 8 based on sartoria’s comment. D’oh.

ETA2: Ohmystarsandbunnies, I did name Bashak’s internal sidekick. Why do/did I not remember this?