I describe my writing process as “method writing”. No notecards, no outline, research as fact-checking rather than prequel. Perhaps a video game might be a better analogy. I have an image in my head. I give my character certain history, certain qualities. I place my character within that image. What does she see? Hear? Smell? Remember? And from there he/she says and does things, and I write them down.

For a long time I was Rikki, or at least part of me was. Sometimes at night I would dream as Rikki. Yet at the same time I was writing Rikki I was writing her away, pinning her character and the circumstances that made her down on paper, transforming all that energy into a controllable entity, an entity that readers can—and have—made of what they want.

For the past two years I have been Tessa. Unlike “Wrong Highway”, which was a domestic family drama, my new novel, “It’s Always 9-11”, is a political thriller made personal. I termed it an “alternative dystopian today”. Over the past few months the reality of the book has in many ways mirrored the real world and my process has seemed less like method writing and more like witnessing. Certain themes repeatedly pop up in my writing: headstrong, alienated women; motherhood; troubled teenagers; stretching the bounds of safety. Beyond that, Rikki and Tessa are very different people. When I first started writing 9-11 I found I was writing Tessa as Rikki and it was a gradual process shifting my fictional consciousness to a new character. Slowly but surely I transformed and made needed revisions to the book, Given current circumstances I feel like Tessa much of the waking day. The journey I’ve undergone as Tessa has changed me as Wendy.

Don’t know if that’s for the best, but that’s how it is! I look forward to sharing “It’s Always 9-11” with you.