On Writing: How my story got hijacked

With both of my books, I knew the ending before I started writing, and I had some key story elements in mind, and was excited to get it all down on paper. This is going to be great, I'd think, and start writing. That's when it would all fall apart.

I blame the characters.

They rarely [never] comply.
 It's as if you write their physical description, drop them down into some setting and  situation, and they just look up at you and say, "See what you got me into. I'll take it from here."

To a fairly new writer, this was a bit of a shock.  I mean, it's my story, I know where it's supposed to be going. Shit, [sorry Morgan] I'm the one typing...But it never fails that a character takes off and starts acting a certain way or doing things even I didn't see coming. Which is fine, even really cool, actually. ....except, I need character A to be in such-and such a place at a certain time or my next main story element falls apart.

I'm not above begging.
 [Yes, each character becomes extremely real to me--and hopefully will to you when we get this book deal done]. Begging never works. I just end up looking like a nut [except to the other writer in the corner...he gets it] muttering to myself in Barnes & Noble.

Or pouting.
 I'll walk away from the computer with a "now what are you gonna do" attitude, eventually wandering back after browsing some book I could be reading, guilty that I left these people I love [yes love. You can't spend this much time with them and not love them] in literaray lingo...sort of the same as when you read a book and stop in a key scene and come back to it later, leaving your poor characters frozen holding the gun, about to kiss, or whatever...

Anyway, I eventually give up and just start typing, thinking,  fine, let's see where this goes...and you know, it always goes somewhere great. The problem of the story works itself out, and the character gets to do what they were going to do anyway...which is how it should be, because, at the end of the day, it's their story, and if I sit back and watch, magic just might happen....

More on begging....
If you are enjoying my posts, please pass the link on....which, for now, is the only way to get to my site: referral.  If I can build hits and followers I may show up on a google search some day when an agent comes looking for me...as for now, I gave up looking for myself on page five of Google Search yesterday, [Yeah, I googled myself...] after my buddy Rob said he'd be happy to support The Geoff Gardner Memorial Bowling Tournament that popped up.