The Germ Of An Idea

  It happened again. Yep, the germ of an idea.Sometimes it's the strangest thing that triggers them.Browsing the Internet, clicking on obscure stories, killing time. Yeah, I have so much of that. Time. Free time, to be more specific. That was dripping with sarcasm, by the way. lol But, I clicked on a story that took me to a page with an audio clip that was...well, disturbing. Not many things scare me. Ahem. Okay, not many things used to scare me. These days, I guess it doesn't take much. I had a visceral reaction to this audio, though. Last year I'd worked on an erotic short story which I'd planned for a Halloween release.Stay with me on this.I caught the germ of an idea then, in the form of my heroine driving a moving truck through a torrential downpour. She was moving. Into a house she'd bought at for a song at on an Internet auction, sight unseen except for a few pics.Not so unbelievable these days.She was vivid. She was driving through this horrendous storm to this house. A house that was literally from one of my nightmares. A house that had a particularly terrifying mailbox. Don't worry; I'll explain that later, hopefully in the book. Just trust me on this. This mailbox was from my nightmare, and it scared me. Will it scare you? I think it might once I elaborated on it in the story. Because, clearly, at that point, I didn't have enough of the story to make it anything but a quick idea that I put down on the page. I didn't know the why of it all. But I digress. This audio recording was so horrendous that it gave me chills. It gave my goosebumps goosebumps. And then, with a little back and forth emailing to and from my BFFFW (Best Friend Forever, Fellow Writer) Barbara Huffert, an idea was born. A shockingly good idea, if I do say so myself. An idea that ties into that story and gives me a solid foundation for the story, that gives me a solid plot. I haven't had one of those for a while. But, can I pull it off? I have to wonder.I'm not going through writer's block, per say.But, it's sort of a block. It's the kind of block that happens when life just gets in the way of writing. I mean, knocking you off the path like a charging elephant that chases you for miles. Miles away from your current WIP. The kind that causes you to lose track of the story you’re working on. It was supposed to only be formatting, which turned into edits, which with me come in the form of REWRITES. I know. I know. Stop that, right? But damn it, I can't help myself. I've been editing Leather and Lace and you know what? My voice has changed. Sure, it was published by Ellora's Cave. Put into print. But, Lord help me, I write differently now. I honestly feel that I can't just cut and paste into a format and upload this book into Amazon without doing a clean sweep through it to make these changes. I'm trying my best not to release anything that has any mistakes, that can be made better by a new perspective, by a more mature author (me), in the sense that I've learned a lot over the last thirteen years.Yeah, thirteen. It's hard to believe it's been that long since I've become interested in writing. Since I first sat down and attempted to write a book. Since I'd gone to my very first writer's conference. That would have been in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I'd won a scholarship to attend the weekend. It was amazing, but taught me that I had a LOT to learn.  Thirteen years later, I feel as though I'm spinning my wheels. I have a laundry list of health problems. I have custody of my twelve and a half year old nephew, who has special needs. I'm moving six hours away in seven days. One week. But, I have plans. I'm planning on attending a meeting for the local writers group, Midwest Fiction Writers. Okay, that's the plan. I haven't been much of a people person for years. I mean, almost agoraphobic. Sure, I go do things I need to do. Things I must do for my nephew. But, socializing...not so much. So, it'll be a huge step for me to attend. To partake. I'm hoping for a major boost. Hoping to get back on track. Back to the stories. To pick up and move forward, to get my back list uploaded, and yes, edited and formatted, and to be able to work on new ideas. Back to those ideas. The good one. I haven't been this excited about something for a long, long time. So, here's hoping. Hoping that despite all of the changes in my life, all of the distractions that constantly take me away, I can find my way back to the stories. Because, isn't that what all this nonsense is about. Telling a story.  Is there anything you stopped doing that you long to do again, that you miss so terribly and yet, just haven't gotten back to doing it for whatever reason or reasons? Good luck and have a great week, Taylor