Help! I'm Trapped in a Closet!

In Unbidden Magic, I narrate the story through my main character, Allie Emerson. My thoughts fill her head. My words come out of her mouth. She feels what I feel. I’m currently writing Midnight Moon, book 5 in the series and, as usual, Allie is frequently in peril. I know, because I put her there. Consequently, I feel an overwhelming need to rescue her.

Here’s my dilemma: Like most writers, I have a life beyond writing. When I travel out of town for soccer games, weddings, graduations and the occasional vacation, my work in progress is put on hold.

Why is this a problem? Because if I abandon Allie in the midst of a predicament, she nags me until I write her out of it. Remember what I said about my thoughts and feelings becoming her thoughts and feelings? It works the other way too.

 In book 2, Moon Rise, Allie is kidnapped and locked in a closet in the dead of winter with no heat in the house. I’d just finished writing that scene when my husband and I left on a golf outing with three other couples. Fortunately, my friends know me well and didn’t have me committed when I kept muttering, “Poor Allie. I’ve got to get her out of that closet.”

In the book I’m writing now, one of Allie’s friends is snatched by a Trimark and chained up in a creepy basement. Guess what? She started nagging me. “Get me out of here! Spiders! Yuck!”

This brings us to the next question. Exactly how many people do I have to be responsible for? Two? Four? Fifteen? Oh please, I already have too many voices in my head.

Gotta go. Allie just climbed into a cistern, the portal to Boundless, and is being harassed by a malevolent faery named Clyde. No time to waste!