Lucky Girl - Completed

oh I totally get what's to like about Liam! His problem was that he was trying very hard to fit in with a group of kids who in short: did not think he was cool enough for them. That sucks, and he would have done better to focus his attention on other kinds of people, but it's hard to get things right when you're so young. I think people like him struggle during their teen years when they haven't found their tribe and figured out exactly what they want yet. I considered revisiting Liam later on in the story actually, just to see how he was getting on, but I don't think I will. In my mind he's fine, he's doing what he wants to do and he's still waxing surfboards on that beach. Good for him!

I have to say, I really love Shane. My friend read the first chapter a while ago and she said "I hate the horrible brother!" which now makes me laugh. Shane's a very Irish man. If you've been here or ever come you will see carbon copies of him everywhere you go, the same clothes, the same haircut, probably holding a hurl and beating a ball against the wall, and I never fit in with people like him in real life, but in the story I've developed such a soft spot for him. I've written further than all of you have read, but there's a moment with him in chapter eight that just makes me fall in love with him. He's the hero to me. He's always, always there for the people he cares about, even in his own gruff, stilted way. <3

Aha! Alain was such a handsome man, and I totally get what you mean. In a 60s version of this story maybe Claire would have compared him to Alain rather than Johnny Depp

Yeah the family scene was meant to be a bit revealing of aspects of him, but we'll revisit that a bit later!! :wink:

haha awesome - I felt so powerful when I got to use the title like that. I was like "I've been waiting for this moment!!"

Yeah I felt that way when writing him too. Like, I was determined not to make him perfect, because honestly what teen boy is, so he's nice sometimes and not so nice other times. He can care about his friends and be nasty to people he doesn't like and there's nothing particularly alarming about that, I'm sure we're all like that.

You forget what a minefield writing is until you do it, and the absolute hardest thing about it is the self doubt and the questioning. I feel you could write something over and over and still not be happy with it, so it comes to the point where you just have to say, okay, enough. My weekly update plan helps with this. I'm always about 3 chapters ahead, so I have 3 weeks to fuss over the chapter and then it's published. There's a limit on the agonizing.