377 days, Blog #161 The List, line 26

I just drove home from the center of town about an hour ago.  It’s a quick drive of 3ish miles, but there is an ascent and descent of a hill.  Not to mention the twist and turn of a country road.  Plus now we are in that peculiar shift of winter to not quite spring.  The atmosphere is warm enough for rain, but out here the snow is stubbornly holding onto its land.  The two do battle and wrap the outdoors in a fog.  But the fog is fickle, depending on where I was on those hills.  Or if I was near a stream.  Or light.

I know it is fog.  I know these temperature and elevation details have much to do with it… but something in those three miles on the dark country road let me see the magic in them.  The way a stretch of misty air rolled out of sight in the periphery of the vision my headlights allowed.  Or how it suddenly dissipated to reveal the fork in the road.  Imagery that would be a really cool effect if I had the mastery of a camera to capture such things.

But I store them in my mind to think of images for writing.  Maybe I can use that in a scene or two.  The mists, whose hidden possibilities are as old as time.  As old as magic.

I spent a good chunk of my writing energy the last two years on historic fiction.  I am very proud of the story… but it is complicated and requires some strict attention to relative accuracy (nothing is ever really accurate because it is always perception).  It was more difficult to lose myself in that novel.  Maybe that’s why I don’t know what to do with it now.

I missed the permission of the paranormal.  Which is funny because I shy away from the fact the novel I wrote and published is paranormal.  The very reason I was tempted to try it has poisoned the well so to speak… and I don’t really want to be put in the same category as every other vampire novel.  Because, while I enjoy this paranormal concept, my story is very human.  Very historic.  But… I guess… it relies more on emotion than intellect.  Which is good.  Because it is fun to read… not too surprising as it was fun to write.

I want that fun again.  For a number of reasons.  And I have been looking for it without trying to hop on a bandwagon.  But it always seemed so lame – especially as I was working on this really important novel and trying to keep my brain educated about topics of race and poverty and social justice – the antithesis of fantasy or fun reading, right?

And then, on one of those snowy weekends in February (there were a lot, I know – but this one was unfortunately RIGHT before tech week), I found what I was looking for.

I am really bad at describing novels.  Especially the ones to which I am so close because I write them.  I like to create twists and turns so I never want to give away too much. I love details, so then I get bogged down in them and wonder that my listeners' eyes glaze over as they listen politely to what I have to say about it.

So, let me tempt your eyes to glaze over.

This is actually not one novel.  There will be several.  I don’t know how many yet.  It depends on when I get sick of these characters or the arc needs to descend into completion.  But I’m not entirely sure there will be an arc, as it is pretty timey wimey.  

Yup.  Time travel.  Only the time travel occurs between the books mostly.  More on that later.  

I am not a scientist.  I am even less someone who could understand the world of physics and looking at time from that angle.  Besides, magic is more fun.   And anyway, who said that magic can’t somehow be science?  This is a paranormal story after all.

I still had to convince myself.  Google is a lot of fun… especially when it leads you to the county where you’ve just booked a cottage to stay the last week in July… and then prompts you to book a room the following week so you can look for that which Google only gives rumors.

Very old magic, from the ancients.  The world of the aos si or sidhe.  I still have a lot to learn and imagine… but that is what the summer is for.

 

Before then, however, I do intend to keep on writing.  The intention is to start with three separate stories.  I have a lot of work to do.

But I have all of time to think about.  One of those stories has to be present day.  But the others can be any time between now and the time before anyone remembers.  I am drawn to a couple already… and the why I could explain further.  But I need to write fiction before this day ticks through the last two hours towards conclusion.

For now, I will say that my list has a new entry.  A large and significant entry.

#26. Start a new novel/series.

I’ve started it.