Blog Number Three

So, yes, I had given up writing for several years, but deep inside my soul, the “want,” the “need,” to express myself through creating characters, then killing them off, was still alive, well and begging for release.

Hot flashes and the unexpected and unannounced explosion of tears drove me to the doctor’s office.  When he said, “get a hobby,” I laughed in his face (along with a few droplets of spit).  So…crocheting, knitting, gardening, needlepoint, jewelry making, genealogy, reading and quilting aren’t enough?  “No, no,” he hastened to add.  “Do something different, something you really want to do.”  I left the doctor’s office with a sack full of samples:  hormones, mood enhancers, tranquilizers, sleeping pills and his advice.  Advice I felt certain was Heaven sent.  That was “Miraculous Event Number One.”

“Miraculous Event Number Two” was reading one of Fern Michael’s books while sitting in that doctor’s waiting room.  Darn, I can’t remember the title, but it was about a college professor who found a dusty old trunk filled with unpublished, anonymous novels hiding in the attic of an old house.  A hundred-plus years after this unknown woman (it had to be a female writer) was dead, through the efforts of the professor, her novels were published and became best sellers.  OMG.  That could be me!

When I arrived home, I nearly broke my neck racing up the stairs to the attic, dug around in boxes until I found my work.  Yes!  I would finish every novel I’d ever started, then pack them all away in my husband’s old military footlocker (which I’d painted white with pink flowers during my folk art phase).  Then, a hundred years from now, my great-great-grandchildren will be rich and their long-dead relative (namely crazy ole Shar) would be famous.  Oh, what a wonderful dream.

I had a goal and I would achieve it.  I attacked this project as any respectable OCD woman would do—full court press.  So…what do I do with a dozen novels?  Did I really want to stash them away in a footlocker?

I haven’t even gotten to “Miraculous Event Number Three” and I’m already at an important crossroad.

Please tune in next week for this continuing saga.