Writing or being a writer or the writing muse, is weird. Two years ago I jumped headlong into the Nanowrimo project determined to complete a novel in the ensuing November. That story stopped dead in its tracks 3 chapters in. There has been absolutely, positively no movement in that story idea, which is unusual.

Normally, any story idea that sits untouched, percolates and with time becomes something complete. To show how weird this is: in the meantime, I have written and published one novel and completed the manuscript for a second. Also, the other day, I found a folder in my fiction folder in Word and it was a couple of paragraphs on a story idea, which I am glad I wrote down, because I had totally forgotten about it. This was three days ago. And even though, I refuse to think about it because I am trying to devote all my creative juices to my present manuscript as I try to tighten things up, that latent story is developing quickly.

So how is it that a story idea that I had two years ago lies uncharacteristically dormant, yet others are bearing fruit, left, right and center? I think one possibility is that the story idea was forced in the first place, it was to satisfy the Nanowrimo challenge, so it never came from the heart. The other thing was that the main character was based on my little girl and I have a hard time doing that. Needless to say, that was my last Nanowrimo adventure. Not because they are bad, but because I can't force the muse, also, I have found that when the juices are flowing, i cannot help but write. Motivation is not a problem for me.

My current sci fi manuscript is a time travel piece, Catholic themed, but not exclusively, in fact it is more about people and the Catholicism is more in the air. The title is Children of Clay. The latent fast-developing thriller :) is called The Truth about Jean. So far, that looks more like a short story, probably 10,000 words (novel length is about 50,000 words). Fortunately, I have another short story, Mirror, and so all I need is a couple more and I'll have a short story collection.

But then it all leads up to the ultimate question, so what? If they get published, they'll hardly get read anyway... Vanity of vanity, all is vanity.

Speaking of Solomon, I recall a friend in my Bible-toting, scripture-quoting, fundamentalist Christian days, who wanted to impress a young lady ("Girls like skills, nunchuck skills, hacking skills, you gotta have skills"-Napoleon Dynamite). Anyway, in that culture, tossing out Bible verses from memory is a point-building activity. And so, in his eagerness to score points, he decided to share Songs of Songs 8:7,the only problem was that he missed the number order . . . and she had the Bible. This is where those Southwest commercials really apply . . . "Wanna get away?"