Writing Again! Writing Again! Writing Again!

Good Morning My Confidants!

It’s only 6° out there as I write this, with only a high of 11°. That’s a disappointment, considering yesterday was a balmy 35°. Tomorrow isn’t going to be any better. Which means Noah and I might miss—for the third Saturday in a row—our Saturday morning coffee café tradition. I hope not, but we’ll see!

Because the good news is that for two or three days in a row now, I have been writing! I am so excited! With today’s temps, and the fact that I looks like I might need a new car battery, there is every reason to stay in!

I mean, I have been writing again. And with “365 Days of Silver” last year, and my “Good Morning My Confidants” essays I was doing on Facebook, and now my blog, I’ve been writing more and more and more.

But now I writing my fiction again—My OtherWorld is coming through into this one more and more—and every now and again a tear just slips right down my face, I’m so grateful. Because I am writing again and I am loving it.

Before attempting to write any of my plethora of new characters—and there are indeed many, thanks to so many of you, my readers, for gifting me beautiful Ken dolls—I thought it might be best to see if the at least three novels (four?) I was working on are worth finishing. Or re-working.

And...OMG!...yes, they are!

Or at least the one I pulled out first is working. Is working well. Very well! It’s one of those I-can’t-believe-I-wrote-this books! I mean, it truly could be the best thing I’ve ever written. If it get’s any notice or publicity at all when it’s released, it could be big! Really big. And I am not talking I-want-to-get-rich-big (although I wouldn’t be pissed about that—LOL!), but “big” as in word getting around about it and my writing. I honestly and completely think people won’t be able to help but love it! I look over my novels and the ones that sold really well and the ones that sold not-as-well, and while it really is all about the magic of a book finding the right person who passes on the word, I also see what people seem to like the most out of what I write.

And I think this has it all, without me writing it to try and fit some mold. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to write a formula book. They meet stumbling over each other on the first page, they kiss the first time on page 32, they have sex the first time on page 111, they break up on page 178, they get back together on page....

You get the idea.

I will not do that!

BUT.... IF it turns out that my idea, that I am LOVING, clicks all the buttons that my biggest book hit, coincidently, without me forcing it to, why not? What not I say!

Now here's a BIG thing that happened that made me KNOW something magickal was happening.

I was looking at the opening chapters of the work-in-progress, and two dolls that people had gifted me, two “Kens” who hadn’t told me who they were yet, all but climbed plastic tub of plastic waiting-to-be-character-dolls, waving their hands over their heads, and cried out, “Us! It’s us! We are Perry and Cal!”

(no, I am not crazy, and even if I was, I’m not dangerous-crazy)

They now stand next to my computer and all I have to do is glance at them and they are even more alive, guiding me more and more, helping me fix what’s “wrong” in what I’ve written, showing me where I steered a bit off course in a few places, happily letting me know what I got it perfect, and already telling me that THEY know what is going to happen next and they’re not telling until I get there.

It’s enchanting.

Thrilling.

I can see in my head again! It’s been so long!

When I write it’s like I am sitting in the middle of a movie theater, lights low, 70mm, Technicolor screen. Or even better. I am surrounded on all sides, before me, to the left and right, behind me, under and over me. Like the holodecks on STAR TREK. And soon I can hear that world around me, feel it around me, smell it around me. Often, I will do things to insure it—like find a YouTube video with looooooong videos with the sounds of what I am writing—nature, city streets, restaurant noises, etc—and when I can, maybe even something olfactory—coffee, food, incense...

For a long time, I couldn’t pull up that 3-D cinematic world up and around me any longer—it near broke me. Seriously. I loved that world and talking about it made my books all the more real to my readers. Not being about to tell my stories? It all but killed me.

But it’s coming back! I am sure it helped—in this case—that I was bothered to find a YouTube videos of.... But no, that would be telling. And I am not telling ANYTHING on this one!

Because I think I have hit on a fairly uncommon trope. I don’t really remember reading a book like this before, really hearing about a book like this before, except for maybe a tale from myth. I can think of one or two movies that sort-of hit it. But not really.

Also, this story really is what I do best. It’s a sort of Cinderella story. It is very loosely related to another book or three of mine. And one of the two heroes comes from a tiny town that has shown up more than once in my stories.

And I really like my guys. They have their problems they will have to overcome, but neither of them need to change to make the reader like them. It’s not one of my many jerk-turns-into-a-nice-guy stories (although I love those as well). It is surprising how, if one of the heroes is a jerk at the beginning, the reader just can’t read to the point where the “bad guy” begins to change. I think they character triggers something with a particular reader. Someone really hurt them and they can’t see the character as anyone except that person.

But THAT is another story for another time.

Today all I want to say is that I am so excited about this book. I hit a snag way back and this time I am seeing how to fix it without changing the story in any way...because those pesky characters have a way of telling you what happens to them next. I just don’t want to pull an Agatha Christy and pull a character out of my...out of nowhere who steps in and saves the day (or in xxx case, turns out to be the killer).

I did make one whopper of a mistake yesterday. About 10:30 or so, the dogs came upstairs and let me know the wanted me to take a break. Would not leave me alone. Barked and everything. So, I asked them for ten minutes and they finally settle down and then TEN minutes later (!!) they started bouncing around again. I couldn’t believe they needed to go out already, they can wait a lot longer than that, but I went downstairs and let them go—they raced out the back door like they had been shot out of a cannon, so maybe they had to go, but I think they just wanted to bark at the neighbor’s dog—and when I let them back in, when I started to go upstairs, they jumped on the couch and let me KNOW I needed to keep them company while. Well, that wasn’t my mistake.

My mistake was that in choosing something to watch on streaming while the dogs and I cuddled, I chose Sharp Objects. I wanted so watch something that was supposed to be really good because I wanted that kind of story-telling in my and not silliness when I went back to writing. Thing is, while yes, it was VERY well done, it was also very anxiety-ridden and depressing and agitating and very you-can’t-stop-there-you-got-to-keep-going and then Noah got home and then RBear got home JUST as it was ending and that ending was so shocking and a twist I didn’t see coming for one second (and it’s hard to surprise me) I was just sick-to-the-stomach over it and there was no writing after that. And besides, the boys were home, and I wanted to be with them.

AND that series haunted my dreams all night.

So while I will say while I admire what they did with the show, it certainly went against what I had decided to do, and that was not watch anything depressing for a while. Nothing where the hero dies. No dog die. Etc.

But thankfully this morning it’s back, the groove, and I am ready to start again! I have the video going with the right background noise to go with what is happening and the dogs are downstairs (for now) and if I have to take a break, I will make sure it is something romantic! And no longer than two hours so no suggestions of shows like HEARTSTOPPER! LOL!

Well, my friends! That is what I have to say today. That, and I hope that whatever has stopped you from doing what you love will go away and leave you alone so you can get back to it.

I wish that for you with all my heart.

Because when we are doing what brings us joy, we are quite literally doing what we were CREATED to do. That is how we know what it is we are “supposed” to do. Joy is our compass, telling us the direction to go to be WHO we are supposed to be.

And right now, I am reveling in that!

And I am SO grateful! And I am thanking the Universe—and everyone who supports me—with ALL of my heart.

Because what we thinking about—and THANK about—we bring about.

Follow your compass!

And so it is

Namasté,

BG “Gentle Ben” Thomas