Recently released : Jesus Takes A Sabbatical | Someone’s Going to Jail | The Magician’s Widow
I like to think that my brain works through ideas quickly. Maybe it does with some while other things take a lot longer to simmer. And I’m sort of an impatient monkey with a touch of self-diagnosed ADD.
So, the majority of writing you’ll see here is flash fiction; fully fleshed in its own realm but more akin to abstract and not figurative art. I genuinely like the nature of the short story: get in, tell a tale, get out (hopefully, with a punch).
But it’s the years-long simmer that I want to write. That’s where my novel comes in.
Sometime in 2011, on a trip to Mexico I had a flash of inspiration. Under a string of twinkly lights in a palapa I jotted an outline of a novel in my journal: a tale about being lost and finding a home, set against the folklore of the Yucatán.
I’ve thought about this quote from Stephen King from time-to-time:
“A writer's notebook is the best way in the world to immortalize bad ideas. My idea about a good idea is one that sticks around and sticks around and sticks around.”
So, this story hits both targets (yay me!). And, truthfully, I’ve attempted to write this novel 3 times.
The last, and longest streak, was during the pandemic. After 38,000 words I stopped, printed it out and read it straight through. You know what happened? I fell asleep. Yikes.
So I shelved it. It’s still sitting there in the cloud gathering virtual dust.
Here we are, some years later. I’m writing a new version, under a different moon in a very different place personally, emotionally, and physically.
I’m plugging away again, stealing a minutes nearly every day to add a few more lines. Currently, I’m sitting at 20,000 words, or about a third of the story (I think). As a vomit draft, it’s got plot holes, unsteady characters and fix-its galore.
But I like this version. It feels more real, more possible. I’m constantly writing myself into a corner where the problems I’ve created now need a resolution to move on.
I like solving problems. I think I’ll keep going.
-j.