You are spearing that tomato and I don’t want to hear another word about it

I hate authors who do that dippy routine about how “the characters tell me where they want to go and I just follow,” invariably followed by a specific example of that time when the author wanted to do one thing and the characters wanted to do something else and they had a long argument and the characters won. I hate it because it makes all authors sound like swoony psychopaths who have to have long discussions with their forks before they use them, when actually the most successful authors tend to have a strong work ethic and take no nonsense from their imaginary friends.

Ok, but I’ve been writing more and more fiction lately and I have to say, it is pretty exciting to sit down with no idea where the story is headed and then watch as it actually heads somewhere. And while I am not talking to my fork just yet, it really does feel like it comes from somewhere else, like it’s something I’m reading in someone else’s book as I write it.

There is always the possibility that I am actually cribbing from other stuff I’ve read and I’m just not remembering, of course. I understand this is a common danger for neophytes. But either way, I’m pretty delighted these days.

This is not my robot writer.