Paring Plot Points

Wow. What a year this has been. I resolve to not judge myself for all the time gone by, but to pick up and continue on with a promise to continue, and continue continuing until I accomplish this great task of creating a novel. And there it is.

So, finding my way back to Ireland proved easy in my mind and effortless in my heart. And now a remarkably important section has been wonderfully edited and whittled down to a genius point. I have spent the last few months tossing around the particulars of one character's past, and it came into a clear neat little package this morning!!

I am so very relieved and excited to move on from this section and return to the main thread of the plot. Because while I was trying to figure it out, I found I wasn't able to devote time or attention to any other part of the plot. It was as if I had to spend my energy focusing on this part before I could move on to anything else. I've never experienced anything like it before, but as long as it keeps the story's inertia moving, I'll be able to adapt if it happens again. And now it's done!

It was crazy! It seemed like the whole time I thought it needed to be this long-winded explanation of soooo much and every particular had to be developed and put out there, but when it all came down to it, it was quite the opposite. All this time and brainstorming spent on every different aspect of this particular time in this specific character's life, pages and pages of notes and pages and pages of text, all of it to be succinctly pared into one. single. page. One single scene was all I needed to do the job. I know more will be revealed later, but that's where I was getting lost. I was trying to cram it all in at once. And it had been all wrong. And now, one page did it perfectly.

I do know and am grateful for all the pages of notes and text, however, because I also realize that is where the ability to work the magic of showing the reader characters, instead of telling the reader about characters was able to rise. I feel excited and accomplished about this development today! This was a lot of work and now I can move on! Just thought I'd drop a note here about it. Sending love to all!!

Thank you :) and

cheers

MNT 2 BE

As I am readying to climb back into Ireland, circa 1880s to 1940s, I wonder a little bit what that long break was all about. I am not any less passionate about the telling of this story, nor about the eventual release of it as a book. So I find it incredibly interesting that I could let it "sit on a back burner" for so many months. Maybe it needed to simmer. Maybe some development in me as a person and therefore in me as a writer needed to happen to tell this next part, for this part is going to be difficult. Not in the same way the other hard bits to tell have been, but in a new complicated difficult way, involving a character I have known from the beginning, never liked, and have created a relationship with that will be altered by the bit of the story I am now in the process of creating. But change is good. And seeing what was once good in others, no matter how awful we had deemed them to have become, is all a part of learning how to recognize that everyone has their story and most every cruel human has their reasons, valid or not.

Whatever reason there was for my hiatus, the license plate my daughter pointed out to me today, MNT 2 BE, reminds me that I am doing everything right. Life is all meant to be, and anything I've done or haven't done at this point, is exactly right. And the only part I can do anything about is the present.

This book is good. Really good. And I am thankful it is being told to me to tell to you. So, without further ado, on with the show.

cheers

Welcome, 2016! Let's Do It!!!

Greetings dear blog and any blog readers who happen to stumble by!

2015 predictably rolled itself into 2016 and I, for one, am already excited about the new year!! Maybe it's because 16 is my lucky number or maybe it's that I was born on the sixteenth. Or maybe it's because I can feel that by this time next year, my first novel will be complete and radiant! Each day I feel myself moving further and further onward into becoming the full self I feel within me. I can't begin to explain how profoundly the year 2015 will continue to impact my life, but I have the intention to do so in another book I am currently working on. As I said, 2016 is going to be a banner year!

I'd like to take a minute to say thank you to my family and friends for all the support, patience, flexibility, and love they have overwhelmingly shown me over the past year. I hope that I am able to return, even in some small manner, the kindnesses bestowed upon me to each and every one of them. You guys are always in my heart!

And lastly, I'd like to say a deep, overwhelming thank you to my two children, the two fearless adventuring warriors with me on our remarkable journeys through this present life. You are my saviours and my demons alike, showing me and teaching me about the brightness of the light and the depth of the dark. May our true love for one another continue to cast the gift of shadow into the brilliance of light to see our lessons and, linked arm in arm, stride forward in growth and joy. You two are my blessing. Thank you.

So, with the internet finally installed at our house, I foresee an uptick in blog posts... We shall see ;)

Many blessings and much love to you and yours!!
peace and cheers
b

Patience as a Gift

I have been back in Springfield for almost a month and guess how much I've written! None! Not one little word of my novel. And guess how much worry I have about it! None!

Settling back into the swing of things here in the States was about as unpleasant as I thought it would be, but I know it's all in the way I choose to look at it. So, with a bit of adjustment to the way I was looking at being here again, I feel I can flourish as much as I was in Ireland. Same thing with my writing. I will be seated at my computer and it will all come together and flow out when I create the space for it and I can either worry about when that will happen, or keep doing what I can to settle in at a natural pace and let it happen when it does.

With everything I collected and experienced and learned over in Ireland, I know this is not going to be a difficult book to write. My characters are strong and they tend to write their own scenes. But in order for their voices and experiences to flow through me, it helps to keep myself a clear channel for this to flow. Free of unnecessary negative self-chatter about what I'm not doing that I think I should be or what I could be doing better. I am doing the best I know how and will continue accomplishing that best. I give myself the gift of patience, which I know will in turn give the world the gift of this novel.

cheers

The last Irish post (for now, wink, wink)

Through the magic of the Universe I find myself flying back to the United States four days after my originally planned departure. Sufficed to say, I would have rathered a different tactic in getting me to change my date, but seeing as I would not have done it of my own volition, out of the things that could have happened, I'll take this one. Hiking with a friend, my purse was stolen out of the vehicle after the window was smashed. Trying to be prepared for my upcoming flight, I had started carrying my passport with me, so there it went. And there I stayed.

I was able to get a new passport with little to no difficulty, just added expense, and change my flight with the same characteristics. I don't try to understand anymore why things happen how they do, but I do stand stronger in the knowledge that they all happen for a reason and always in my overall best interest. I am grateful to be swept along in their kind currents. Go with the flow, as they say.

I used those extra days to make a peaceful departure from the land I had come to love so deeply. I knew it wouldn't be a good-bye all along. Just a see you later. I was blessed with the gift of a 12 hour intense writing session on Tuesday and the entire time I kept smiling, knowing that this session never would have happened if my passport hadn't been stolen.

I miss my purse, a loving gift from my sister last summer. I miss my wallet, a loving Mother's Day gift from my daughter two years ago. I even lost that wallet for eight months and found it again! Maybe it will come back in the mail! I miss the little swath of fabric my daughter sewed her first button on with her name in marker scrawled across it. Even so, I hope the money in it was able to help someone in need, and I hope the action of it teaches the thieves as much about gratitude as it has me.

I now know this 6 month plus journey in Ireland was the grand beginning for me of so many more journeys just as profound, rewarding and fulfilling. And when I'm finished with it, I'll even have a wonderful story to share with everyone at the end!

I'd like to draw a brilliant spotlight on all those that have contributed to my accomplishing this monumental feat. My soul's gratitude is overflowing and I am here for any and all of you, and will always be in whatever capacity I can give. Thank you for your encouragement, your support, your love, your belief in me and your willingness to believe in a dream. Now go out there and believe in your own, because the world will rise up to meet you and I'll be first in line to shake your hand.

Such love!
cheers

One Week Left, It's Going to be All Right

I am sitting here staring down my last week right in the face, and it looks a lot like boxes and bits and bobs leftover. How does one accumulate so much over the course of six months?! Oh yeah. Life. And that fact that "one" is actually "three." "Yes," I told my son, "I'm sure there's a way to fit your awesome paper mache castle you made on the last week of school to go back with us! And of course the replica of the WWI trench you made a few months ago. We will definitely have room." (Especially after I go back to the hardware store for more boxes... Nigel is very kind.) It certainly is a different look into your life when you have to pack it all up. Anyone who's moved knows this. Here I thought, yes, if I send my children back with my father and brother on the 30th, I'll have all that time to finish up my research and go to the rest of the places I need to. I've been doing alright in that department (like looking at microfilm reels until my eyes are rolling back up into my head) but I still didn't take into account just how long I was going to take packing the rest of it all. Thank goodness I gave myself the extra time is all I can say!

Now that the children aren't here (I do miss them something fierce, though) I have the evenings and nights to go out. Not in the sense of the word "go out" like party, but just being able to be out of the house after eight or nine. Last night, I went and parked outside Kilmacurragh (the gates were locked at 6pm, I arrived at 7:30) and walked in to have a look around and get a feel for the place during summer evenings. It was lovely. It was a little reminiscent of being there in the winter with so few people around (none last night) and watching twilight drift over the land. Since we are so high on the equator over here, it stays light until almost eleven around this time of the year, and as it was, I wandered in via a route I had never taken and made my way down to the pond where I sat and had a small meal of hummous, crackers, cheese and tomatoes, with a bit of vino to quench my thirst. It was a delightful evening and I imagined if Sophia ever snuck down to the pond at night to try and catch frogs or see some flower that only bloomed at night. There were gorgeous Calla Lillies blooming on the bank in front of me, and since it had rained earlier in the day, everything had a refreshed, crisp clean scent to it. It was heaven.

If I get these last few boxes packed this afternoon, I am going to try and make it for a night hike in Deputy's Pass tonight, so I better get going. I'll be flying back to the States this time next week, and I will be honest in saying that, as much as I am absolutely looking forward to seeing friends and family, I am not all that excited about going back to the country I so easily left behind. So, I'll focus on the people!! Can't wait to see you all!!! Much Love!!

cheers

Latest Novel Synopsis

I notice much has changed in my plot since being here. My post from back in August of last year has some major inaccuracies and I will correct them here. The first major change is the title, which now reads, The Forest Through the Trees. Here is the latest rendition!

We are first introduced to Sophia, an 84-year-old spirited, yet gentle woman, who has lived the majority of her life in the United States, a successful author of many children's stories which have instilled countless young minds with the knowledge they are loved and cherished. Her husband of nearly sixty years has passed away, and she now feels it is time to write the story that has been patiently waiting inside her all that time, respectfully remaining unwritten, according to her late husband's wishes. But as she begins, she quickly realizes this story, though it had recently been aching to be written, was going to take a little further effort on her part to coax out. She knew she had to return to the land of her childhood summers, the years she met and befriended her future husband, and the events leading up to her entire family's exodus from their ancestral estate.

Traveling back to Ireland, she brings with her her granddaughter, who, like so many young people recently finishing college, was a bit adrift and waiting for her life's purpose to pay her a visit. Isabel had always been a source of joy for Sophia, and her international traveling during her senior year made her the perfect candidate of the family to accompany her grandmother on a visit to her homelands.

Returning to find the house in ruin was harder than Sophia imagined, but it was made easier by the care and attention that had obviously been continually paid to the surrounding gardens. While visiting the old estate, they lunch at the new cafe recently opened and meet a keeper of the grounds who surprises Sophia by showing her some old papers found in the basement. Most were ruined over years of damp, but one box in particular seemed to survive just to save itself for Sophia these many years later.

Sophia carefully opens the box to find her old journals and notebooks she had to leave behind. This, she instantly knows, is why she came back. And so she begins her adventure of rediscovering the youth she once was, before all innocence was stripped away and the mystery of family never existed within her comfortable walls of naive ignorance. Not yet knowing what is to become of it all, she begins to write.