Our daughter is a lovely, intelligent, spiritual, healthy, well-rounded young woman. It’s hard to believe that she had some major health problems when she was a child. When she was eight years old, she developed a rare malignant tumor, an eosinophilic granuloma, that made a half-dollar-sized hole in her skull.
Three years later I began writing a book under contract to Zondervan about how to pray in a crisis, based on what I learned through that experience. Just as I was in the midst of writing the book, my daughter fell from a rope that broke, into a brick wall, and had a closed-head concussion on the other side of her skull. Then three weeks later my mother had a debilitating illness.
(My son asked me, “Mom, why do you think we’re having so many crisis things happen when you’re writing a book on crisis?” Me: “Maybe it’s on-the-job training.” Him: “Why don’t you start a book about getting rich?")
Sometimes a book develops differently because of outside circumstances, as this one undoubtedly did. But when Bonnie wrote her post that personified her protagonist-as-protagonist (can we call this a new literary device, protag as protag?), it reminded me of what I wrote in the last chapter of my own book, Crisis: Crucible of Praise:
From the beginning, writing this book has been like raising a child, a headstrong child at that. I originally planned for it to be well-behaved, an example for others.
But as it matured, it proved to have a mind of its own. It has run off into places I never intended it to go. It has opened dark cupboards I had forgotten, and dragged out their contents. Instead of it being the reflection of the good qualities I wanted to pass on, it has, like all children, shown its parent to be weak, vulnerable, and prone to mistakes.
Have you felt that a book you’re writing or have written developed personality? Can you share an example?