Eileen Goudge

Out of the Salt Mines…

Whenever I’m asked “How’s the book coming along?” I always think of it as one long book that never ends. That’s how it feels when I’m in what I call the ‘salt mines.’ Which is a more colloquial way of saying I’m on deadline. What it means, in a practical sense, is getting up every morning at an hour when folks on the west coast have yet to hit the hay…relying on my husband to bring home the bacon – literally…and having the pile of unread magazines in my living room resemble the leaning tower of Pisa (soon I’ll be able to open my own recycling center.) One of the doormen in my building recently asked if I’d been on vacation. He hadn’t seen me in so long he assumed I’d been away. I told him it was because I hadn’t been outside my apartment!

On the plus side I tend to get very cozy with my characters at this point in the process. I have breakfast and lunch with them. They talk to me. I talk back. They share their stories with me over endless cups of tea. I know their wardrobe better than I know what’s in my own closet. I cry for them when they’re upset. I laugh with them when they’re happy. Does this sound like the ramblings of someone in a mental ward? If so, it’s because I sometimes think the mind of a writer isn’t so different from that of someone with delusional tendencies. We’re all a little crazy.

Soon it will be time to say good-bye to my current cast of characters and start on another book. Parting is such sweet sorrow…but I shall see them again come reunion time (as in the next draft) and the reunion after that (the final draft). They will be gone but not forgotten. Then you, dear reader, will have the pleasure of getting to know them as I have. I’m just glad they’re not a jealous bunch, because then they wouldn’t be happy with the new crowd getting ready to make its entrance…

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