Category Archives: dreams

Darkness and humor

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At the end of another busy summer at the lodge, I came home today and relaxed by scrolling through the many posts I have published on this blog. I have participated in many writing challenges that have allowed me to hone my writing skills by inspiring me to create a full story in a certain number of words. This particular challenge was to write a 66-word story using the word fanatic. The following paragraph was my entry.

‘After hearing the word mispronounced, with the emphasis on the wrong syllable, she had an idea of what to do with the wretched people who would not allow her solace.  Fanatic – indeed they were.  They camped out in her driveway, followed her everywhere but, one by one, they became smaller in numbers.  Her “fan-attic”, mind you, was becoming rather full.  She hoped the smell would dissipate.’

I blame my brother for introducing me to the wonderful books of Dean Koontz in my teenage years. Dean’s books are filled with dark themes, but those books are lightened by an underlying humor that makes the badness easier to embrace. This is the style of book I love to read, so this became the style of book I wanted to write.

Although I have written and self-published six books, I still love a challenge. Earlier this year, I entered the NYC Micro-Fiction Writing Challenge to create a story in 250 words with a pre-assigned theme and a key phrase. I missed the top ten entries by one, placing first in the honorary mentions. I received some wonderful feedback from the judges and great encouragement to follow my passion to keep writing.

I will soon be editing the book I wrote last winter and I will forge ahead with the book I have just begun writing. Next year, two new books will be added to my growing list of novels, and I have ideas for so many more stories. Once the hard work of writing the books is complete, the harder work of marketing myself begins. Wish me luck!!

Inflation isn’t a bad thing when it has to do with your ego

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My series of books has been getting more attention lately, which makes me a happy writer. Some wonderful reader in the US has quickly ingested two of the books in the series, and I am keeping a close eye on my KDP stats to see if they delve into the next book. The local sales have increased during the summer months, and book sales at the lodge are adding to the growing list of people reading my books!

A family of long-time guests (they started visiting the lodge in the 1980’s) checked in on Saturday. Two of them are currently reading books from The Relative Series and are loving them. Vickie has not been reading much over the last few years, but she picked up Gemini and couldn’t put it down. That makes my heart happy. Her mother Deb, who is also reading my books, told me she used to be an editor. She admits there is a lot of crap out there, but she praised my writing and told me I deserve high marks.

My head barely fit through the door when I left work yesterday. My ego grew three sizes, and I could not help smiling during the entire drive home. Today is my day off, and their praise gave me the shove I needed to turn off my phone and re-awaken my creative brain. Sadly, it has been dormant since the start of our busy summer season at the lodge, but I am determined to rattle its cage and wake the beast.

The long list of ideas for new books is anxiously awaiting my attention. This fall, I am determined to edit the book I wrote last winter, and get started on one of the many ideas I have listed on the white board titled ‘New ideas for books’. One of those ideas has a firm grip on my attention and the protagonist is urging me to listen to his story. I cannot wait to be lost in the familiar fugue of writing while my characters tell their tales.

Let it flow

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These are words I recently used as advice for a friend of mine. After texting this phrase to her, I sat back to let those words play over and over again, like a moving marquee in my brain, until my own message became clear. The words I shared with her also had a deep meaning to me.

I have sadly been neglecting the voices in my head. I have allowed myself to live each day in a perfunctory state of mind without paying attention to the creativity I have harnessed in the past and thoroughly enjoyed while listening to those voices. The list of to-be-written books in my brain has grown exponentially, but the compulsion to put in the work to bring those stories to life has waned.

I miss the joy I feel when I write. I miss those moments of lost time when I become so consumed by a story that hours go by before I am able to remind myself I am in my own home and I am not the central character of one of my stories, and living in a realm I have created.

I need to embrace the freedom of creativity, and I need to let it flow. I need to let it wake me up in the wee hours of the morning. I need to let it interrupt my work hours. And I need to let it add a few items to my grocery list.

Being able to create a story from beginning to end was never a gift I asked for on my Christmas wish list when I was a child. But being able to create a story from beginning to end is something I will cherish for the rest of my life. Let it flow!

My Bridge Day

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Yesterday marked the ninth anniversary of my mom’s passing and like I have done for the last eight years on March 7th, I woke up at exactly 7:02 am. That is the time I received the phone call and was made aware of her death back in 2014.

The first time it happened, I thought it was an unlikely chance occurrence, but it has happened every year since she left us, and when I wake up at 7:02 am each year on March 7th, I replay the phone call over in my head. Her departure was unexpected at that time, and I can still feel every emotion I felt in that moment. I remember what I was wearing. I can recall the dryness in my mouth, the uncontrollable tremble in my lips, and I think of how difficult it was to sit up in my bed and swing my legs over the edge to bring myself to a seated position.

Today is what I call my ‘bridge day’ because tomorrow will mark the seventeenth anniversary of losing my dad in 2006. After his prolonged illness and subsequent health decline, his passing was much more of a blessing than the sudden shock of losing my mother, but the loss of a loved one is never easy to process, regardless of how they leave our world. These early days in March not only remind me of how much I have lost, but these days encourage me to continue to be the person my family and friends always wanted me to be.

I willingly forge ahead with each new day, thoughtfully holding on to the lessons I have learned from, not only my parents but, all the important people in my life who have left this earth before I could mentally prepare for their absence.

I have seen this bridge in my dreams. Many times, this stone structure has entered my subconscious and pulled me onto the apex of its design. As much as I wish to see the faces of my loved ones and feel the warmth of their embraces, in my dreams, I stand alone at the peak of this stone wall. I know the spirits of those who have left my world are with me. I am so thankful, and although I cannot see them or hear their voices, I can feel their energy surrounding me, keeping me safe, and sending me implied messages and signs that they will always be with me.

The writing bug is back

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I hope you are all well and staying safe. I have not posted here as often as I would like, but for good reason. I am finally continuing the adventure of writing my second book.

My creativity from March to July was dismal, at best. I could not put together a string of words that gave me any sort of joy. My work in progress collected dust and my characters had self-isolated to the extent I feared they had taken reclusiveness to an award-winning level and would never return. I was devoid of ideas and was deeply saddened by the reality my prolific brain had atrophied.

But a series of chance discussions in August sparked my imagination and charged new life into the decaying cells in my brain. One by one, the neurons began to fire, and the ideas began to flow. The novel that had sat in solemn darkness with only 18,000 words is currently over 31,000 words in a span of two weeks, and the characters are now tripping over themselves to add their stories to the chapters of the adventure I am writing. This is a writer’s dream.

The inspirational voice that sounded was unexpected, but quickly presented ideas that got me excited. The stagnant pool in my head is now churning with ideas. I find myself at my laptop, writing for hours at a time and then having to physically readjust to the life I am living outside of the life I am creating in my story.

This is my bliss. This is the elusive happiness I struggled to find for four months before the muse came back. This is what being a writer is all about and I cannot tell you how excited I am to finish book number two and continue to write the following three in the series.

 

 

The elevator and the stress of knowing exactly what to say

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As a writer, I craft strings of words into sentences. Those sentences become paragraphs that eventually blend into chapters to create a novel. To say that process is easy is ridiculous. When I wrote “the end” after finishing my first book, I felt like I had nurtured the story from conception, and I had carried those words until I had given birth to a full manuscript. After I typed those two words, I wept.

I thought the most difficult part of writing a novel would be the writing itself. I was wrong. I have recently become much more aggressive in my plight to share my words. After chatting with a friend, and then a friend of that friend, I was gifted some great advice and given the task of coming up with an “elevator pitch” for my book. For those unfamiliar with an elevator pitch, it is basically condensing the eighty-three thousand words of my novel into a twenty-word pitch that could be quickly shared on an elevator and outline of the backbone of my book. It was an arduous task but one that made me strip back all the things that take place in the story to the reveal the true essence of what the book is about.

I was forced to forget about the characters and all the great plot twists I had woven into the fabric of the story. I was tasked with creating a succinct delivery of two lines that could pique the interest of someone who could potentially propel my first child into the private school that had a three-year wait list. It was hard. It was intimidating. But it was achievable.

After many drafts that were close to the mark, but not close enough, I managed to put together twenty-three words that truly convey the heart of my first book. I also created a similar pitch for the book I am currently writing as well as a pitch for the third book waiting to be written. The elevator may skip my floor a few times while I am waiting for the right door to open, but now I am confident I will know exactly what to say if given the opportunity.

 

 

 

Even my exhaustion was exhausted

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Frayed nerves aside, this summer was one for the books. From not knowing if I would even have a job this year to spending countless hours researching all the Covid protocols for opening a family resort, this summer presented a profusion of challenges. Thankfully, we rose to meet them all and we had an extremely successful and safe season.

When you work in a fast-paced job, there are few moments you can stop and realize how exhausted you have become. It is natural to wake up in the morning, jump into the deep end of the day and swim with all your might until your feet finally touch bottom in the shallow end, allowing you to tiptoe up the stairs to escape the water. This was the summer of 2020.

Our respite, this year, came much earlier than it has in past seasons and my body responded very quickly to the welcome down-time. And when I say responded very quickly, I mean I crashed. I went from going to bed long after midnight and waking at 5:00 am with a brain loaded with scenarios for the day, to sleeping for a solid twelve hours because I could not keep my eyes open much later than 7:30 pm.

But with the exhaustion came the overwhelming pride in knowing that we had not only survived the Covid summer of 2020, we had succeeded in providing a safe and enjoyable environment for our guests. Though they were aware of all of the protocols we had in place, they were still able to relax, enjoy the change of scenery from the concrete jungle to cottage country and forget the turmoil that still existed in the world outside of our resort bubble. In the end, it was a win-win.

My exhaustion has since been remedied. A few nights of sleeping like a teenager has brought me back to life. The Covid demon that stole my ability to write has been vanquished and my creative life is back on track, largely due to a great mentor I had the honor of sharing ideas with during the summer and who continues to fuel my desire to write.

What I have learned from this summer is that exhaustion cannot steal the best parts of you. It may have the power to suppress your joy, your tenacity and your creativity, but it does not have the power to fully take those things from you. You must weather the storm until the sky clears and have faith the best parts of you will eventually be restored.

 

 

 

How one book has potentially turned into a four-part series

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Writing is an interesting pastime. Some days my fingers cannot keep up with the speed at which ideas come, and other days I stare at the screen for countless hours and nothing happens. For five months, especially during the initial Covid-19 isolation period, my characters self-isolated as well. The voices I am proud to admit I listen to were so muted, I began to think I had never heard their voices in the first place, and I was unable to write anything. But divine inspiration is a wonderful thing and it comes from sources that are never anticipated, but truly cherished.

Last week, I had the extreme good fortune of having a guest at the lodge who had read my first, unpublished novel in July take a keen interest in the story. He had arrived back at the lodge for a second stay in August, and during each day of his vacation, he dedicated a portion of his precious family time every afternoon to meet with me and discuss his ideas of how he saw the concepts of my future novels morphing into a series. My creativity exploded with the force of a Supernova and an abundance of lights reappeared in the dark recesses of my brain. By gently weaving the characters from the first novel into the fabric of books two, three and four, the “Relative” Series was given life. To say his input was invaluable is an egregious understatement.

In the short span of seven days, my creativity came back with a vengeance. Spending thirty to sixty minutes a day sharing ideas about my characters and my story lines relit a fire within me that had long been extinguished. My neurons recharged, the bubbling cauldron of ideas overflowed and one book turned into a series of four stories, now all connected, taking the word ‘relative’ to a new level.

White board at the ready, I will be spending my day off tomorrow journaling ideas for the new books and documenting the connections between stories. Book number two is still in its infancy, but it is pulling itself up to the table and is ready to take a few more tentative steps before it hits the ground running. Zoom meetings have been scheduled with my friend every Monday beginning September fourteenth and I am ready to be accountable for getting this series written. 2020 has just take a giant turn for the better!

 

 

 

 

Getting my characters out of self-isolation

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The voices in my head, the ones I admit I listen to on a regular basis, have been annoyingly silent over the past few months. Those tentative whispers that regularly woke me from sleep at three in the morning have taken self-isolation to a whole new level and have remained reticent since the Covid pandemic took the world by storm. I am not ashamed to admit I miss the sleepless nights. I long for the wee hours when I can wake up with new ideas for my book and the characters trip over each other to take a prominent position to tell their stories.

I have never been one to write an outline for any story I am creating. I am merely the vehicle for my characters to drive in any direction they choose. My responsibility is to follow the rules of the writing road to keep them from careening over a cliff or crashing into a cement barrier. It sounds much easier than it is if I am being honest.

I have always been a big fan of fiction that is character driven. Sure, it’s nice to read stories that are wonderfully descriptive but, if I cannot find endearing qualities in the characters, I tend to lose interest if I am unable to find a connection to the personalities who are telling their stories. I had developed a wonderful rapport with my new characters and am thrilled they felt comfortable enough to share their narrative with me.

But the time has come to coax them out of hiding. I am going to bait the trap. I am going to lure them out of their cushy recesses and put them back to work. They have a story to tell and my fingers are hovering over the keyboard, ready to make some sense of what they are telling me. I went back to my job after a government regulated hiatus. It is time for them to do the same.

The signs we shouldn’t ignore

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When the souls we hold dear move on to the next realm, I believe with my whole heart they send us signs. As strange as it sounds, when my friend Sandra passed away in 2003 I found my ear drums pummeled by the strains of the song The Girl From Ipanema. It was not a song I would ever have on my play list, and she knew how much that song made me cringe, but its chords would sound in random places and that same song magically appeared on the list of music I have on my iPhone. I have gone through my iTunes history and I have never downloaded nor have I ever paid for that song, but it IS there and I don’t have the will to delete it.

When my dad passed, it was owls. I would hear the Barred Owls at night having what seemed to be a profound conversation and one of those miraculous creatures would frequently visit and perch itself on the largest branch of the tree closest to my deck. When I am having a bad day, those owls seem to make themselves known with their signature call and the calming effect takes me back to when I was a child and would curl into my dad’s protective embrace.

Years later, when we lost my mom, it was butterflies. Although Monarch butterflies are relatively common where I live, these stunning winged creatures would appear in such a way that we knew my mom was letting us know she was close. There was a playfulness to their flight, like she was reminding us of how strong her spirit was on Earth and how that spirit continues to be a part of our lives even though she has been gone for almost six years.

Today, still fresh from the raw emotion of having to recently let my dog go, it was birds. Callaway and I used to sit on the deck together and I would marvel at the unique species that would visit my feeders. There have been many different birds who have frequented my deck, but Chickadees have always been my favorite. With the tears still sneaking up on me, I sat in my living room today and watched at least five dozen Goldfinches jockey for a position on the feeder through the window to my right. The slight movement to my left made me look out the other window and a single Chickadee was sitting on the window sill, looking directly at me from outside the glass. It stayed for longer than a confused bird would and its gaze was trained on nothing other than me.

These are the signs that make me feel like our lives are not limited to where we are now. Every one of the signs I have acknowledged over my lifetime gives me a sense of peace. They provide me a continued connection to those important souls in my life and let me know that they have not actually left, but they are now able to communicate in a way that is special to me.