I'm a Tortoise

It takes a long time to write a book. Unless you happen to be one of those rare and gifted types who can sit down at your screen and hammer out a novella over the weekend, it’s going to be a process that takes up a good portion of your time and attention.  If you’re like me, you are constantly mulling over ideas and stories. In the pick-up lane at school…in the produce section of the market…while doing dishes…while watching people awkwardly engage in small talk in social situations…the mulling never ceases.  The actual writing though, that takes self-discipline and the ability to stay in your current story despite what’s actually happening in your real life.

It took years for me to finish writing Ransom of the Healer. I’m now what I consider to be half-way finished with the next book in the series, Rise of the Seer. I actually started writing scenes for Rise while I was finishing up the first book. Once again I’m trying to keep embers stirring in a story that is now over a year old. When I think about the places I have been in my own life this past year, I can justify how slowly the story sometimes seems to emerge. I’ve lost people. I’ve grieved. And I’m pretty sure that there are going to be places in this next book where I look back and see a reminder of the journey. If I’m going to have to go through grief, I’m at least going to find something productive and beneficial about it. The beautiful thing about being the creator of this world is that I get to choose the people I add to the story. It’s therapeutic to put a character in my story, if only for a couple of paragraphs, who will live on in print for as long as the book survives.

In case you are one of my treasured few who are eagerly awaiting Rise of the Seer, just know that I’m not going to disappoint us. I’m mulling and that inevitably leads to writing. Once that happens dishes pile up, laundry goes untouched, and ideas explode onto the pages of our next adventure.

I woke up to find this little note waiting for me on the coffee maker...

 

 

Weekend Winners

Congratulations to Velma and Daniel for winning the Weekend Giveaway!

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Another Chance

I have the warmest writing team around. They are always there to listen as I think through plots and map out the direction of the story. They never disagree with me, and keep my feet nice and toasty as we sit together at my desk while we work. If I don't give them more credit in my next novel, Rise of the Seer, they have threatened to walk out on me. I call them on that bluff because they always come back as long as the food bowl is full. Zeke, Zoe, and I are friends for life.

 

The three of us are excited to offer you another chance to win one of three signed copies of Ransom of the Healer this weekend. I'll be hosting a giveaway that begins tomorrow and runs through the weekend. As Suzanne Collins has famously said, "May the odds be ever in your favor!"

 



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Tell-Tale Attic

There is something living in my attic. I’ve not personally met the squatter, but we’ve communicated through bumps, flutters, and (in my case) shrieks. The tale of the attic begins as a frustrating one. When our house was built seven years ago the team installing the AC/heating unit did a *less than stellar* job. The result is heat suddenly turning on in the middle of the night during the summer and heat refusing to stay on during the winter. We’ve had it looked at, but that’s another story altogether involving beards, wiring, and throwing coins into wishing wells. All of these things lead to having to go up into the attic to flip the switch in order for the heat to come back on.

Attics just teem with ideas of creatures lurking in the corners or other unwanted beings wandering around up there in the dead of night. They hold their own mystery and intrigue. When you couple those traditional, and completely warranted, ideals with a writer, you get a significantly more dramatic version. Logically I’m aware of the fact that Sasquatch doesn't live in my area. (The Chupacabra, on the other hand, are still out there.) Logically I know that the space is so small I would see if someone, say a wandering traveler with malice in his (or her) crazy, messed up heart, decided to camp out up there. They would fall through the ceiling…logically.  The thing about logic is that it tends to falter in the dark, or during extended times of solitude. What might be a trapped bird fluttering around up there while the family gathers around the fireplace with great American novels in their hands, becomes a demon spawn of the underworld as I sit down, alone, to write the next great American novel. Don’t even get me started on what it turns into during the night.

I’ll leave you with this final thought: someday, it’s going to happen. I’m going to pull those stairs down, make my way up there, and something is going to happen. I have a hundred ideas spinning around in my mind as to what it’s going to be, but until it happens, those stories will live and grow until I’m forced to put them into my computer where they will turn into an adventure for some unsuspecting character. I guess what it all comes down to is that every writer needs an attic.

 

Starting Somewhere

May 2010. That’s when this journey officially started. That’s the day I sat in my favorite reading chair with a spiral notebook and began to scratch out the rough idea of a story. I’d had a dream with an interesting scene and I needed to know what happened after waking. That was the beginning of my story.

I wrote during the preciously few moments of quiet in a house that’s full of life. I wrote before heading off to a job I was fortunate to have at a time when it was crucially needed. I wrote on the front porch when I needed to find solace in a busy routine that could steal my identity if I lingered there too long without a break.

 Interesting things started to happen when I forced myself to step away and work on something I enjoyed. I remembered that I had always loved writing and couldn’t figure out why I had walked away from it. Sure, I did a little journaling, but that’s different from sitting down to see how a story unfolds. I began to look forward to putting my words on a page to see how everything would come together. I began to enjoy the world I was creating. I began to feel balanced and active. It didn’t matter how many times I refilled a cup, or fed the dogs, or wandered through a week of a job that I wasn’t crazy about, or packed lunches, or a million other things that kept me busy. Knowing I could sit down and write helped to keep other things in perspective.

I hope that you, fellow reader, have something in your life that brings you a sense of satisfaction. What does that look like for you?