Author
Dean Smith

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

- W. Somerset Maugham

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The trouble with young writers

is that they are all in their sixties. 

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- W. Somerset Maugham

I write for the same reason I taught for over 35 years - to make a an impact on people's lives. If you want to know more about me, then talk to my characters because you'll find bits of me in all of them. 

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When I was completing Old Friends & Other Strangers, Wendy Weller stepped out of the manuscript and chastised me. "You're doing it all wrong."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You've got the adults swooping in and saving the day. We can save ourselves, thank you very much." She said this with her arms crossed, challenging me to find another ending, which I did.

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I wasn't sure if I needed a shrink at that point because I was having a conversation with someone who doesn't really exist except in my head. So, I sought counsel from a group of professionals. I asked about this at a writers conference. "Does anyone else here talk to their characters?"

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The room filled with laughter - not at me - but because "Of course, we talk to our characters. They're the ones writing the stories."

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Pen Pals

They sleep in the back of my writer’s mind, 

on bunk beds, no doubt,

so they can stay up and talk late into the night.

Sometimes I hear them

bumbling around in the dark, 

fixing a cup of tea

or sipping a glass of wine.

They only exist in my imagination, 

but they come out on lonely walks.

We chat, confusing my neighbors.

I ask what they’re up to

and what’s coming next.

They’re good people, most of them,

the kind you’d enjoy

spending time making plans

or sitting quietly at the creek

where I skip stones.

I wonder if they ever go fishing – 

maybe with Tom and Huck.