The GP (Writer's) Wait Room

It's rare for me to write so many blog posts in one go, but hey. I'd rather write 5 in a week than wait 6 months to write another one haha.

So I was talking with my dear friend and fellow romance writer Sarah Bailey a week ago now? (we talk all the time so I have no idea when exactly) and I described what being a romance writer felt like.

This had come about right when I had completed my current contemporary WIP and I was feeling pretty lost. So I described it as something like this:

Being a romance writer is like being a GP.
You have a waiting room full of characters waiting to be seen (written).
But those who come late want to be seen first. Everyone's impatient. Once you finally get around to actually discharging patients, new patients walk in with even bigger problems.
But you, as the GP (writer), need to prioritise. The only problem is you'll have one character who claims that their heart has been broken and they'll never be able to love again, so it in turn breaks your heart and you want to help them first. THEN you'll hear another character say how they don't even know why they're here to begin with, that they don't have a problem called 'love' because love has never touched them (this one is what I call an anti-hero/heroine, by the way), then you drop everything just to help that twisted character out before they hurt thenselves.

I think it's pretty much an accurate description. At least for me (and Sarah). We now often talk about our wait rooms, who needs to be seen and what the prioritise are and honestly? I find it quite fun to talk about it in that way.

To count, I currently have...in order of priority:

1. Noah & Kessie (they arrived 3rd)
2. Elliot & Devin (they arrived last)
3. Ken & Viera (they arrived 1st)
4. A secret couple - (they arrived 2nd)
A few pirates but no one has dropped from the airship yet to announce themselves

It kind of just goes to show how things never really according to plan regardless of who came about first. Sometimes it's about what's easier to tackle. Ken and Viera have always been my first patients but their problems are 'epic'. It'll take me a while to get them discharged...a long while. They're basically furniture (but pretty steampunk furniture).

It's our job as writers to listen to our characters' hearts and heal them, even if our own breaks along the way, the end is always rewarding.

I'll stop now, otherwise I'll just go on forever.
How many patients are in your waitroom? And do you have the same problem I do with prioritisation? I'd love to know!

​S.R