Nano Day 8

I am now at the part of my book where all five of my main characters are together in one scene for the entire weekend. I have been leading up to this part of the book for almost 20k pages, and now that I'm here, I feel a sense of fear. Whose perspective will I tell it from? How will I merge all of these personalities into one house for one weekend? Thankfully, it's only a few chapters, and things will go back to semi-normal. I would love to hear how your Nano books are coming? If you are not participating in Nano, then how is your writing going? Make sure you remind yourself why you started writing to begin with -- tap into that energy! 

Goodbye Mr. Rat, Hello Sleep!

 

For the past two weeks, I have been dealing with a rodent who I will refer to as Mr. Rat.  How do I know that this rat is male? I don't, but if I think for a moment that it was female, I will assume there might be babies, and honestly my poor nerves can't handle it.  Mr. Rat moved into my home and started harassing me from the beginning.  He made loud chewing sounds in the walls, and scratched through the night.  I originally thought it was just a mouse.  The mousetraps went up and soon they were being carried off into the unknown.  I thought wow, strong mouse. It took me quite awhile to admit that it was actually a rat.  

The rat haunted my peaceful writing sessions and would pop its head out at the worst times. I ran screaming from the room once when it ran near my feet. Sleeping was not an option. As soon as I would lay my head down, I would hear it sniffing around and the pitter-patter of its feet across the floor. A live trap and some larger traps later, I thought I had it taken care of. I was wrong!  I stayed up until 4:30 in the morning waiting for it to be trapped. It walked half way into the live trap and then left it as if telling me that I was stupid to think it would fall for that.    

It was time for the poison--I didn't want to have that around my house, but I couldn't let Mr. Rat run my life anymore.  It was placed under the cabinets, and I waited days for it to take its toll.  Mr. Rat continued to walk around the house at night, and wake me from my dreams.  It became so bad that if someone rattled a bag I was up off the couch searching him out.    

Today was Day 2 of my schedule, and I was staying on task! I was just about to sit down to write a blog entry and work on a chapter of my book when I caught a shadow out of the corner of my eye.  It was Mr. Rat.  I chased him into my sons' bedroom, and there I waited ten minutes on my knees with a large pot in my hands.  Eventually, he came out of hiding, and I covered him with it! He was captured.  I'm happy to say that he no longer resides in my home. I dropped him off in the woods near some water.  He didn't look too well, and I'm sure that he probably had tasted a bit of the poison.  I did feel bad for him for a second, but I tried to give him plenty of opportunities to leave my home without harm! I am hoping that this is the end of the story for Mr. Rat and myself.  A second chapter dedicated to possible baby rats is not something I look forward to writing!  Mr. Rat lived in my home for a few months, and I thought it appropriate that he have a place in my writing.  Goodbye Mr. Rat, hello sleep! 

    

Why I Write!

I feel the only appropriate introduction to this blog would be to tell all of you why I write. Stories such as "The Secret Garden" and "Alice in Wonderland" allowed me to hope that worlds such as that exist. Magical places that I could escape to, keys that would unlock a beauty that could only be described by Frances Hodgson Burnett, or rabbit holes that went on forever as imagined by Lewis Carroll. I believed in these places, and I wanted nothing more than to be part of them, the scary parts, and all. Soon my imagination turned to love stories, the kind that leaves you with tissues, and a longing for that type of love. Nicholas Sparks brought me to a world that depicted so much more than the movie remakes could ever portray. Elizabeth Berg said this, "I still think about characters and sometimes I--this sounds awful to say, but I draw inspiration from my own characters. You know, what would Lainey do? Do you think she'd be sitting here bitching about this? No! She Wouldn't" (Writer's Digest March/April 2010). She has allowed me to realize that it is okay to be in love with my own characters. In fact, those very characters are a piece of me.


I write because it allows me to escape into a world that I created in my mind a long time ago. I write because I dream of more than what we see in front of us, and because my imagination carries me throughout the day. If I did not write, I think I might explode! I write because I love it and someday someone will be reading one of my books, and they will love it too! I write because I am a passionate person who dreams. I write because it is who I am--and I will no longer deny myself that right!

The Write Life will be a place that I can be who I want to be. I will discuss intimate details about the very characters that have entered my life. I am sure I will complain and maybe even cuss about the struggles of not knowing what to put in that next paragraph! I will share my joys and disappointments of the struggles of becoming a published writer. Most of all, I will write!