Simmering Softly – 1 Writer’s Way

Author’s  Note: After my discouraging health update the other day, I realized you might like a writing update. Here it is.

It’s slowly settling in: The Northern Lights series is complete.

No more Olivia. Or (big gulp) Lucy. Or our sweet Gertrude Rose. No more stopping by The Baked & Brewed.

My first response was a giddy little rise of happiness in my tummy. You know the kind that you feel when you finish a big project. And no more of the Lyons.

It felt good.

This was followed immediately by a twinge of sadness. I will miss Olivia’s world because it’s easy to love my imaginary friends over time.

But it’s time to move on, and guess what?

That feels good, too, because my new pretend friends are waiting.

Writing a series meant spending more time with my pretend peeps. I knew them better. Their quirks (even the ones not revealed in the books) were especially fun to discover, and my heart grew fonder of my paper people.

The funny thing about them is that they did not seem to notice me or care about me. I created their world and was welcome to enter but not participate in the story. I had my place, and they had theirs.

And yet, I’m all over every single page. Yeah – weird, I know.

Each writing day, when I walked into the story via my fingers and laptop keyboard, it was fun to “see” where the characters were and what they were wearing that day. I tried to slip in unnoticed and looked for a corner with a view where I could see and hear what was going on, and I might see details Olivia might want later would be seen by me first, and I could help her find them when she needed them most.

Another thing about them: They didn’t seem to notice my attire. In a moment of fatigue, I wondered if Olivia and Pete laughed together at The Baked & Brewed over my wardrobe choices when I closed the document.

I know better, but thoughts like this cross my mind sometimes.

After spending years with Olivia, it seems like it’s suddenly over. A break-up of sorts.

I’m not in Oak River anymore and am surrounded by reality. Since I like our reality, mine, and Jon’s, this is good.

But . . .

. . . a new project is nudging me. While Jon and I go for rides, ideas swoosh in, and they seem like good ones. I hope I’m right. When I wake up in the night, thoughts meet me in the darkness, and I like them too.

The pot that is my imagination is simmering softly. When it gets to the point of boiling, the characters will tell me their story, and I will type.

There are  242,403 words between the covers of these three books.

On those days when the words to new projects come hard, a glance at these covers will prove to me that what I think I cannot do, I have done in the past and can therefore do again.

Today I looked at the covers after Jon hung them and savored the soft simmering stage so full of possibilities.

It is essential to this writer’s way.

Until Next Time,

Joy

Here’s the link to my CaringBridge page. https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/joydekok