A writing update for you all this week, for what feels like the first time in forever.

I’ve been thinking a lot about character development lately. And I’m finding, for once, that I don’t feel as unsure of my characters as I used to. None of the characters in Wilderlands is overtly autistic, but almost all of them are in some way at least neurodivergent, even if it isn’t immediately recognizable from the outside. This isn’t something I set out to do when I conceptualized the story. That isn’t really how my ideas and my characters come to me. But as the story has developed, I’ve been simultaneously working on my own past trauma and baggage, and there’s just no way to keep that from carrying across to my writing.

One thing I did focus on from the start of this story was pushing myself into uncomfortable territory. I’ve used Wilderlands to depict some of the darker aspects of my childhood; the intense isolation that I felt in every social interaction and the bullying I experienced in varying forms. 

It wasn’t easy and it definitely came out pretty clunky at first, but the more I work with it, the more real my characters feel. And I think it’s really helping me with the healing process. 

The thing I’ve found that I didn’t necessarily intend when starting out is that all of my characters are taking on different aspects of my experience as a neurodivergent individual with each of them seeming to embody different points in my life. Some of them are the quiet child, desperately over achieving for any scrap of positive reinforcement. Others embody more of the anger and rebellion I felt in my teenage years, lashing out against the systems that were never intended to benefit neurodivergent people. And then there’s Willow, my main character. To Willow I gave all of my vulnerabilities and my fear. She wants desperately to be liked, to have a place in this world that she just never seemed to fit into, and she struggles to feel deserving of any sort of love or affection.

Many of my characters are developing nicely as I work on my first round of developmental edits, but it’s Willow who is really stealing my heart. These edits are uncovering issues and vulnerabilities that she’s going to struggle with through multiple books. I can feel the war that she wages within herself. Her desire to be liked forces her to shove all of her messy feelings down rather than deal with them, but subconsciously, she still has this desire to lash out, to destroy, and to take what she feels she deserves. 

Already  I can already feel her carefully crafted facade unraveling. These issues could become some greater strength if only she stops getting in her own way. But they also threaten to consume her with bitterness and resentment.

And, of course, she’s making all sorts of mistakes while she figures all of this out. She ends up doing things she doesn’t mean to, hurting people she loves. She reacts on instinct to old traumas that still haunt her without processing any of that trauma. 

I see so much of my own journey in the steps that Willow is taking now. She’s probably not going to like who she becomes, at least for a while, I’m the same way that I didn’t like who I became for a while in my own journey. When you’ve lived a lifetime powerless and small, it takes time to adjust to wielding power and independence, and the process is anything but neat. 

I really can’t wait to share this story with some trusted friends, and then, hopefully, the world. It breathes in a way nothing else I’ve written ever has. And there are so many things that I’m trying to say with it. I just need to do the labor to make sure that those messages are coming through loud and clear and make sure that the life I feel sparking behind these characters shines on the page.