Sideways

I think sideways. At least that’s what I call it. Thoughts, relevant or not, hit me in five-gallon buckets. The hamster in my brain runs on his wheel full time 24/7. I’m also a magpie for weird facts and history (would that make me a concept hoarder?)

Sometimes it makes things easy. Languages and words are a part of the ink in my veins. Sometimes it takes work, but if I bash my head against a skill long enough (talking about you, geometry and logic), it will bloom in a flash of unexpected lightning and it will stick with me. University and grad school for me were less about the subject matter and more about learning how to think.

When I wrote stories as a kid, I did it by the seat of my pants. I was full-on impromptu and never gave a whisper of a thought to outlining. And it flowed. Hundreds of pages of stories and doodles. I did it by grace alone and it was a gift I cherished.

Through the rigors of grad school and then a quarter century as an analyst, I didn’t have the luxury of winging it anymore. I needed to organize my thoughts in order to present them in a logical and persuasive fashion. But my creative writing changed with it.

Outlining served me well in the work world. And without it, I don’t think I’d have ever finished The Stolen Songbird or become a published author. It even hung on after retirement to plot Murder by Spandex. I SO need an outline for the mystery to keep all the clues straight!

Then I heard about an upcoming anthology with a theme that caught my interest: finding something lost. The idea grabbed me and refused to let go. I started typing and have been pounding away every day. A hundred words. A thousand words. Doesn’t matter how many a day, I’m having fun. It’s now way too long for a short story, and it’s telling me it wants to be more of a novella.

The back copy for the story is on a new tab for my website. For now, it’s called, Novella Project 2026. Not exactly original, but my working title is Plato’s Book, and the people that I’ve mentioned the title to have all said it sounds like a philosophy book. Nope, it’s fiction. Sort of a mash up of urban fantasy, folk tale, and finding yourself again.

The premise is the Rule One of the Folktale: if a talking animal asks you to do something, you do it or bad things happen. And it’s a quest to find a lost library book (I love libraries – my happy place growing up.) The quest is given to the hero by a hedgehog hanging out on the 108-degree sidewalk outside a coffee house in Sacramento Valley. Now imaging that hero is an analyst close to retirement. That thinks sideways.

I’m almost to The End without an outline in sight and loving every minute of the journey. I’ve never read a book that had a character that thinks like me. I think the hamster in my head was telling me that I need to be the one to write it.

I’m planning on publishing in time for the Sacramento Book Festival in April.