Chugging Away at a Novel

I stayed up until five this morning because I was on a roll, as DH puts it. I was so involved in writing Pestilence in Pumpkin Spice that time slipped away from me. It's an odd and wonderful feeling when I'm so deep in a character's psyche that I become the character.

I'm working on the climax of the novel. I feel Penny's panic at losing everything in her life. And worse, her fear of what she's becoming. I hope it comes through in the writing, but I can't step into a reader's mind to know for sure.

However, I think empathy for your  characters is key to being a decent writer, even the antagonists. If your don't understand why the antagonists do what they do, they come across as flat, two-dimensional creatures. Let's face it. Darth Vader became much more interesting when we learned why he turned to the Dark Side.