Dang Adele Moments

There I am. Driving along. Plotting another novel in my head and listening to the tinkling toy music in the back seat when it happens. An Adele moment.

I have to be honest. It’s starting to happen more frequently, and always at a slightly different time, so I don’t expect it. Then that little piece of the past pops into view out my windshield and a tiny bittersweet lump forms in my throat. You know the one? Maybe some of you do.

So there I am, in the middle of all that great plotting that perhaps I can make use of at nap time, and bam, it strikes. Suddenly I’m wrestling with things that I don’t want to be wrestling with. Joy and bitterness collide and all that plotting is thrown into chaos.

Although it’s not exactly an Adele moment, it feels like an Adele moment. That’s just a little piece of the past. I’ve moved on and have no desire to go back. I should be angry at that past in some ways, but I’m more angry that I let the past affect me than I am at it. Plus I wonder. How is the past doing? I wish the past well. To be honest though, I wonder if that past ever glimpses me and has regrets. A part of me hopes so, but fears it doesn’t. Is it terrible to hope the past regrets itself? I mean, I forgive the past, I just hope that it meant something in the end, and if it did, that something would have to come with a little regret.

Then there’s the sing-song voice in the back seat. I’m happy where I am. In fact, I’m grateful for the past because had it not been just what it was, I might not have made the good choices I made. The past is what taught me to appreciate the present.

But there it is. It will be there other days and I will go through this all again. Why? I don’t know. But I sigh and wait for Adele to stop singing so I can get back to plotting in my head.

It must be tough being Adele. That’s all I can say. She must be reminded a lot about her past, because it’s inescapable now. I wouldn’t want to have as many Adele moments as she does. Hopefully the fame and fortune make up for it. I suppose they help some.

The Perfect Metaphor

I was listening to my playlist on the way home from school drop off today and Theory of a Deadman came on with Since You’ve Been Gone. In a flash there I was, watching my characters have ‘that conversation’ again. You know, the one I keep putting off writing because it's in book 2 and convention keeps telling me not to write book 2 yet.

Then I drove into my driveway and saw this...

The perfect metaphor for them. Life growing from that desolate place where life should not flourish. And there were two. Of course there were two!

Ok, to heck with convention. It's a good thing I'm a writer and never pay much attention to that particular annoyance. Book 2 it is! My mystery will have to wait. Sci-fi calls to me and its voice will not be silenced.

Life is full of stories to tell and it keeps finding ways to let me know just which one needs to come next.

Their story isn’t done.

My job isn’t done.

So…

Write, writer, write!

High In The Sky Sci-Fi Hopes

Ok folks, this is it. Make it or break it.

I’ve written many manuscripts to date and my husband has read, well, not a single one. In fact, I’ve refrained from even letting him peek at a paragraph.

Sure, he’d show interest from time to time. But it was that kind of interest which said, let me just see a little, I probably won’t care enough to read more than that though. So instead of putting us both through the torture of, you don’t like it, you don’t care what matters to me… I just said no. He didn’t fight me too much on it either which only helped my resolve.

I mean, it’s not like I physically stopped him or anything. In fact, there were many times that he was present in the same room as completed, printed manuscripts and never even picked them up.

Until this one.

I printed out a copy of my YA SciFi to give to someone and before the ink was dry he had it in hands and was, gasp, reading it.

He put it down after a chapter and I tried not to have a heart attack. But he picked it up again that same night. He picked it up the next night too. After four chapters he said, ‘It’s really good.’ And I looked at him skeptically.

I mean, he isn’t the kind of guy for flattery. If it stunk he’d put it down, no matter who wrote it or who wouldn’t talk to him after. Still, I wondered.

‘Really. It’s an intriguing story. I like it so far.’

Knock me over and dance on my grave, because that’s like an average person gushing.

A wise writer I know on Twitter once told me that the first manuscript her husband ever read was the one that got her an agent and got her published. Ever since Kiersten White said that, I’ve been waiting for the sign. If you write it he will be interested and read it, then the publishing will come.

Well, I’m not one for holding my breath or anything, but who knows. It is a first and one I didn’t think I may see ever, so perhaps…

It still has a lot of reading and editing and polishing to go, but there’s a little spark of hope there. A little reserved spark, but still, a spark. We’ll see if he makes it to the end and if he does, well, who knows, maybe you’ll all get to see it too.

Here’s to a writer’s hope and the strange forms it comes in.

Marriage Is Like A Box Of Chocolates

Very soon I will be celebrating 11 years of marriage. Which got me thinking. Maybe marriage really is like a box of chocolates…

When you've decided that one flavor is your favorite because you're tired of biting into duds, you have them fill up the whole box with that one flavor.

For the most part you love that flavor and can't get enough of it. But after a while you have moments when you think you can't take any more of the same old sweetness. You don't even want to open the box because you're tired of the same flavor day after day.

You see new flavors under the glass and mmmmm, do they look yummy. But then you think about them and what could be inside and chances are they'd just be another dud. Or say they weren't. Say they were as yummy as they look. How will they taste in a month or a year? Will they turn into the same old flavor too? Will they become normal, expected?

Besides, you see people who go off and abandon their favorite flavor in search of a new flavor and the search doesn't get any easier than it was the first time around. Actually they appear to have less patience for flavor testing and have less of an optimistic tastebud, so they're rather hard to please.

No. It's never worth it to leave the thing you love behind and go in search of something which doesn't exist. The perfectly pleasing flavor that never grows old or gets on your nerves is non existant.

What does exist is a whole box of yummy, sweetness that suits you perfectly. Because you know that you're taste isn't always perfect either. Sometimes you feel sour or bitter and you know that you're not always the most enticing flavor under the glass in the candy shop of life. But you picked each other and you love each other and you’re committed to nibbling on no other chocolates you meet along the way. Because when it comes right down to it the flavor you picked is your favorite and the two of you blend together to create a balance of flavor and texture that has taken years to evolve. Combined you form that balance and it’s good, it satisfies, and nothing else could compare.

Yes. Married life is like a box of chocolates, and mine is filled with the one flavor I picked out 11 years ago to be the only flavor in my box. It's a good flavor and every day I remember why I picked it out.

Happy Anniversary my chocolaty goodness. Here's to another 11 years of not dipping into anyone else's box of chocolates.

The Spark that Starts The World on FIRE

What is it that turns an idea into a novel?

Well, besides a lot of time, typing, editing…

As writers we have lots of ideas. Sometimes too many.

Focus writer, focus!

What is it that makes one idea stand out enough to take it from an idea into an entire world of its own?

Well, for me it starts with an opening scene. One image that stops me in my tracks and makes me say, I have to remember this, there’s a story here.

Of course that usually happens when I’m in the midst of writing another story or editing another story, or both. So that idea has to sit, and thank goodness it does. This is the testing period. Sure, that idea is fun or interesting, maybe compelling and unusual, but can it capture me? I know an opening scene has something if a month or two later I’m still thinking about it. If I am, then maybe others will as well.

There has to be more though. An opening scene is great. It can make or break a story, but still, it’s only a glimpse, a beginning. In order to get from that scene to THE END, there has to be something else. For me, that something is usually a character. Once I have the scene that sets the stage it’s the characters which begin to come to life inside my head. I hear their conversations, I see their interactions. They develop voices and their voices won’t stop talking.

No, their voices don’t talk to me. That would be schizophrenia, not writing inspiration. Slight, yet important difference.

I get to know them. Their moods, flaws, strengths and characteristics emerge and I as the writer fall in love. This character has a story. It has a story that exists before that scene and one that goes on long after THE END. Their story becomes important to me when I become connected to them. I have to tell their story, because they told it to me.

So for me I would say the spark which turns every one out of ten opening scenes into a fully completed story are the characters themselves. Because you can have a wonderful concept, but without personal connection the story and world will fall flat.

Writers, what is it for you that turns an idea into a whole world of its own?

Readers, what is it that takes an opening scene and makes you want to discover that new world?

Reality or Dream?

You know those dreams that are vivid and beautiful. The ones you start to awaken from and you feel this terrible wrenching pain as reality returns. It's not that reality is somehow less, but you feel this longing and loss. You want to know how the story went, how the ending played out. Like a perfect movie where you feel along with every emotion, but the disk is scratched and you'll never see the ending.

So you keep your eyes closed, shutting them tight and trying to picture the story again. Maybe you can fall asleep. Maybe you can go back there and see how it ends. Maybe you don't have to leave, not yet. But it never works. You can never know the ending and never feel that moment again.

These dreams don't happen often. Maybe every few years. And you never get to hold onto them long enough.

What if it wasn't like that?

What if you had one of those dreams every night? Every moment you slept was like a perfect wonderful movie. Only better, because you could feel it all.

What if you could go back to sleep and be right there again? What if you could live in that dream for as long as it played?

Would you have the courage to wake up? Would you have the strength to let that moment go and accept one less vibrant, less perfect, less beautiful?

If life was a dream, could you wake up to reality?

This is what it's like to be a writer.

There's the dream, the idea. It comes unexpectedly and it plays before you like a shiny lure. That one scene with those characters that draw you in. You need to know them and the only way is to let yourself slip away from reality into their world.

But the thing is, that's too easy. The story is too bright. The feelings are too strong. You want to go back. You don't want to leave them. You let them play in your head, when no one knows. You escape your world and linger in theirs. You spend more and more time there until it becomes harder to wake up from the dream than it is to fall back into it.

Reality pulls you back, but it's in the dream where you want to live.

You thought this was a blessing. To be shown this other world, allowed to travel there at will. But the blessing starts to become a curse. You can't turn the story off. You can't break away. Reality slips farther from your mind and you become lost somewhere. Do you live, only witnessing these other lives? Or do you live in your reality, where things don't always shine with that light?

What if life was the dream?

What if waking was losing it all?

Until the story ends, I find myself torn between two worlds.

What can I say?

I’m a writer.

Author2Author: Query Clinic Submission #3 (or Good Things Come in...

Author2Author: Query Clinic Submission #3 (or Good Things Come in...: Tip of the Day, Librarian Edition: Please don't get mad at the library if every copy of their children's biographies on Harriet Tubman are c...

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