Life of Secrets is a much more character-driven story than Death of Secrets. Death of Secrets is running, hiding, action, intrigue… Life of Secrets has all that, but mixed in is a woman trying to deal with the garbage in her past that holds her back.
When one gets into emotion and mental state, one has to look at motivations. One has to spend more time trying to describe why someone hurts — why she is angry. That requires writing about someone having hurt someone else.
That’s hard for me.
I like my writing to reflect my value system, and the God who loves — who literally is love — is central to that. I’m most comfortable writing about people doing right by one another, being kind to one another.
But those things shine brighter when set alongside a person who does the wrong thing. It’s just that writing about those wrong things is hard for me.
I just try to keep my mind on the ending of Life of Secrets, which is beautiful. That makes enduring some of the bad characters along the way a little easier.