Let’s Talk About The Weird and Unexplained Things Which Can Happen When Writing #MondayBlogs #WritersLife
My writing life always gets weird and a little bit spooky during this time of year. I know what you’re all saying – ‘that’s because it’s Halloween tomorrow (Tuesday 31 October). Your brain is trying to spot things which it can label ‘odd’ and then validate your belief that this is a spooky time. Probably true…but let’s still talk- ha ha!
October, November and December have always been big novel writing months for me. I like to think I’m not predictable (me – trying to sound cool) but if I look at my journals, I write novels in February, March and April, I have huge bouts of writers block during the summer months, I get a lot of ideas in September, I write an idea between October and early December and January is my month where I read far too many books.
So, these are my writing months. I am currently working on a draft novel and I have already experienced:
Meeting a stranger out of the blue who has the same name as my main fictional character. This year I have purposefully gone for character names which are uncommon to me as it has happened before. Well it occurred a few days ago at work. They were new and were introduced to me. Sat in a cafe and listened into strangers talking about a specific thing which is happening in my story. This made all the hairs on my neck stand on end and I had to shove a wedge of chocolate brownie into my mouth to calm myself down. If this novel I am working on gets published I am going to return to this blog post and tell everyone about the specific thing and you will all gasp with shock
Flicking through an old magazine whilst at the dentist last week. it had been left behind by someone who was seen before me. I casually started reading it and seconds before I was called in to see the dentist I looked down to see that it was open on the Agony Aunt section. There in front of me was a letter from a reader. That letter was basically my novel. I know you are all shaking your heads and saying, you write romance and the chances of you reading something familiar in an agony aunt’s column are big. I get it. To me this was a bit freaky. I have a minor character who keeps appearing in my first drafts and I always end up deleting her. I always think she hasn’t found her right story yet. This character has been in the last six novels I have written and in each one she’s been deleted at second draft stage. She’s a novelist in my stories. She’s appeared again in this latest story. Don’t you love her persistence? Well yesterday I thought I would casually look her name up on Amazon. No idea why. I just thought it would be fun to know if there was a novelist with the same name of this character. Guess what? There is a novelist who writes children’s books and her latest book is about 2 KEY things in my draft novel. They are in the TITLE and on the COVER. Oh my days! What are your thoughts? I know they are all coincidences and my mind is more aware at this time of year but a little part of me likes to think they are a little bit of writer magic.
Any weird things you want to share?
