redchindi

Haha, yes. Whenever my characters run into a direction I don't like, it often helps to go back some passages and just change a tiny detail (like not person A said something, but person B did). And it's a whole different story suddenly.

I really like that quote from G.R.R Martin: “I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”

It summons up so well my way of writing.

I wish you all the best with your book. I might look to get it somewhere (will it be available in Germany?). I love historical novels.

For some it is a vicious circle. They arrive with the best intentions, want to work and build a new life.

But they mustn't work. And from the moment on, when they finally are allowed to search work, the rules say, that every other applicant has a prior right to the job.

So they have nothing to do. They get lethargic. And they learn: Hey, I'm lying around lazy and still get enough money to live from. Why should I change that?

Thank you. I always find it reassuring when other author's characters also develop lives of their own, as I call it. But did you also curse them sometimes, as they weren't doing as you wanted them to? My characters are misbehaving all the time...