You would think, after reading this book, I had some kind of obsession with birds. But I don’t. I don’t even know much about birds and am terrible at identifying them.

At one point in the story I mentioned a flock of birds on the ground who startled and flew up into the trees. My editor said I should label the birds, and she rambled off the names of a few ground-feeders. My first thought was:

There are ground feeders?

That’s how little I know about birds. The great thing about being a writer is that although we get to show off what we know, we often have to learn a lot in a short period of time in order to make the book believable for the reader. Or at least not piss off the bird watchers who are just waiting for the author to stumble.

The interesting thing about writing is that symbols and metaphors often arise naturally out of the story without the writer having to artificially shove them into the story. That is a technique some writers use but it doesn’t seem to work out that well unless the forced experience is what you’re going for. Initially, I did not intend for this story to have such a prominent focus on nature and birds in particular. Like a Bird was the original, working title and it was based solely on the giant, replica birdcage that features prominently Gareth’s home. I did intend to change the title to something “better” once the story was fully developed but that just never happened.

Like many books, much of what resulted was an accident. A happy accident, I hope, and one that was carefully crafted. Believe me when I tell you  the characters and plot twists sometimes surprised me as much as they might the reader. And that’s one of the many things that makes writing such a delightful process.