What Are You Working On?

A small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. 

At the center of this image made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short…..

Photo copyright and more info at 

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/b1509/.

Huh?  What am I working on?

Maybe it’s just a writer thing—because I don’t usually hear it asked of “normal” people within 10 seconds of someone meeting them  or reconnecting with them—but I often run into people who immediately after saying hello launch into questions of what I’m working on.  They don’t mean the multi-million dollar projects I’m working on in my non-writing career or my latest home repair-refurb-redecoration. You writers, artists, and musicians know what I’m talking about.

I don’t get the question from people who are very, very close to me.  They already know what I’m working on.  They hear it all the time because I’m excited about it, Gods help them.  The question is always from acquaintances or friends outside my small inner circle.  They know how much I love writing but don’t keep in touch that often…or just stay out of earshot when I start plotting a novel.

 

What I’m currently working on, writing-wise, is editing a Lauren Hartford project and several non-fiction ebooks, including 23 Ways I Screwed Up My Life  with the Law of Attraction—and How I Fixed It.  And I’m almost done with some last-minute tweaking of  Waiting on the Thunder.  I’m done, but I’m having a hard time letting that one go.

But I’ve started a new novel, too.  First time in a long time that I’ve started a new project.  I still have three finished books yet to edit since I started my last new novel, and I wrote all three of those while power-walking daily with a digital recorder, busy girl that I am.

It’s hard to explain what this new fiction project is, but it’s a suspense novel with the working title The Hand of God.  It’s not a religious book, though I’ve definitely thrown in some Law of Attraction.   The title refers to a specific image, and that’s the genesis of this new novel.  You want to know how I get my ideas?  Right here.

Last week, while visiting with family out of state, I drove past an out-of-the-way spot that had a really strong visual allure to me.  An image there stood out, and to me, it looked like a “Hand of God.”   Later on the trip, I took my family out to dinner, to a place I’d never been—a hole in the road that served everything fried, including gator tail.  On the wall behind us was the same symbol I’d seen earlier, several miles away, painted into a mural.  That’s when the story began to form.

I’m not sure how to explain it yet without giving away the story, but I know who the villains are…and the victims…and the protagonist.  The protagonist is not in any way based on me, but she’s the imagined adult version of a child I observed earlier this year.   The crime is based on something that never happened to me because, wow, am I ever being watched over!  But I came close enough that it got my attention and this novel will put it to bed for me in a therapeutic way.  The 24-year-old protagonist has abandonment issues—both the constant abandonment throughout her childhood and her adult patterns of abandoning others before they can abandon her—and those abandonment issues from her childhood are tied to someone else’s dark secret and even darker revenge.  Yep, my kind of story.

The best part is that I’m not writing it according to any guidelines or any preferred market.  I’m just lettin’ ‘er rip.  Having a blast with discovering the twisted past she’s repressed and how it endangers her.  I’m not writing it for any particular audience or publisher.  I’m doing it for me.  It puts me into a joyous place, all this creativity, and when I’m done, people who love it will recognize the spark in it and love it, too.  It’s not the path to money or fame or anything but my enjoyment.  Anything more that it turns into is just gravy.

So what are you working on?  And is it for you?


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