A Room of One's Own

Working on a second novel as the first one comes out has been a challenge. I'm not complaining. Well, maybe a little. Certainly not about the publication part, but trying to hold two things at one time in my fifty year old brain pan has been exhausting. I find myself wishing for a chunk of time thick enough and deep enough to sink into the new story. The one about the mothers and daughters and all those family members and food--Lord, all the food! I'm not a multi-tasker. I'm almost not a tasker at all. I like to do one thing at a time and I'd rather have less and do less than be real busy and productive. I aspire to be a shut-in one day.

Nobody ever tells you that the best part of writing fiction is resuscitating the imagination you locked away when you started grade school. Writing fiction is a lot like the days when you were a kid and could play make believe games with fantastical plot lines and characters for hours, and in my case, days/weeks on end. Some of those games I played with the neighbor kids and some I imagined and played by myself. Inventing a world where I would marry John Lennon--actually, I think we just shacked up--live on a farm with a cow named Eleanor Rigby and a horse named Penny Lane, and have adventures that had something to do with traveling by balloon to countries that don't exist and playing air guitar.

Writing fiction gives me that part of my brain back--the inventive, playful and darkly twisted mind that loves make-believe and thrills when a character walks into the room and wants to be written.

Even though my novel, Little Green, is rooted in my own life experiences, it is also make believe and so I could invent the resting places for Janie that didn't exist in real life. How cool is that? When you write about your own life, or make it the jumping off place for a novel, you get the chance to give the 'you' character some gifts that maybe weren't there when you were living it all in real time.
Stella was one such gift. He came to me early on in the writing process. A huge man the color of my favorite crayon (Burnt Sienna) who could love Janie but not be in love (or lust) with her. As I got to know him through writing him, I kind of fell in love with him myself.

I want more of that! Having more of that means having quiet time to space out and stare out the window and follow the imagination's trail to the next thing. I better get on that.