Who Knows What's Good or Bad?

Who knows what's good or bad? Anyone who knows me knows that this is probably the saying I use most often. It’s the motto that I try to live my life by. It helps me to remember that we don’t have the capability to see an event through to the end result to determine whether the event is truly good or bad, so it’s best not to label it as such and just let life happen as it will. Here's the story behind that saying:

Well, Monday morning was a good example of having this this story play out in reality. My daughter was next to me, asleep, as I dozed peacefully, and my dog was at my feet. Suddenly, I was popped in the nose by my daughter's flailing hand. It wasn’t a hard enough pop to make me see stars, but it was hard enough to jolt me awake. After I made sure all was well with my face, I relaxed and managed to doze again, apparently long enough to fall into a resting state. While I was in that state of not quite asleep but not quite awake, my mind wandered.

"Not all those who wander are lost ..." ~J.R.R. Tolkien

In The Fellowship of the Ring is a poem known as the “Riddle of Strider.” Its well-known second line, "not all those who wander are lost," tells us that the mysterious ranger, Strider, is more than who he appears to be. He is, in fact, Aragorn, the rightful king of Gondor. The poem is hinting that although Aragorn is wandering Middle-earth, his rightful place is on the throne. But just because he's wandering, that doesn’t mean he’s lost, or that he’s wandering aimlessly without a purpose. Like Strider in Tolkien’s epic story, my mind wandered during this time of light dozing after that fateful bop in the nose, but it didn’t wander aimlessly or without a purpose. 

Let me go back and explain something before I continue with my bop-in-the-nose experience.

My publishing company is called Dreamwriter.earth because I get most of my story ideas from my dreams. If you read my last blog post, you might remember that I was concerned that I had a lot going on inside my brain. The Noodle Motel, as I called my overtaxed brain, needed a “No Vacancy” sign. As I was struggling to find the time to get the books written that I want to write and to publish my backlog of already completed books, I had a dream. In that dream, I saw three women working on building a deck on the back of a house. Inside the house, there was a person watching them working. Somehow, I realized that these three women were witches and that the person inside the house was a werewolf. That’s all the dream gave me. It was up to my noodle to manufacture the rest.

Ever since that dream, I’ve been doing research on witchcraft because, admittedly, I know very little about the subject. Since this will be one of Lyra Zonder’s books, the three witches won’t just be followers of the peaceful Wiccan earth religion. Oh, no. These are going to be real, badass, spellcasting witches. And since they belong to the coven called The Sisters of Bella Luna, I knew that this story would, somehow, relate to my Chosen of Bella Luna series. Which, coincidentally, are some of the books that I was hoping to write and publish, so I could free up some rooms at the Noodle Motel.

Anyway, I’ve been reading and researching, but until Monday morning, I hadn’t come up with a plot for the books that I was happy with. I knew that I wanted the books to be about witches and werewolves. I knew that the three main female protagonists of the trilogy are named Bianca, Amber, and Ebony. I also knew that a werewolf hired these women to build a deck off his house. But that was all I had to work with. I didn’t know who the werewolf was, why he would hire three witches to build his deck, or how he and his pack fit into the Bella Luna series that I’m currently writing. I’m unsure if it’s just going to be related content but not part of the main story, or if it’s like Gypsy Moon, in that the storyline and characters of this related book will become part of the Bella Luna series somewhere along the line.

Then, I got bopped in the nose.

One might think that the bop in the nose was a bad thing. But not me. I let life take me where it will, and it took me on a very exciting journey. When I was fully awake, the details of the wandering road trip my brain had taken me on became clear. I had not only a purpose for the trilogy, but also the details of the three main male protagonists. I even had the antagonist they would all ultimately be fighting against. I came downstairs, pulled out my journal, and began writing.

I’m one who handwrites out my book ideas. I always have. I love the flow of the pen on paper, and how it encourages my brain to slow down. When the book ideas begin flowing and churning, my brain is like a very fast Italian sports car, and my hand is like a 1972 Ford Pinto trying desperately to keep up.

My brain

My hand

Fun fact: My mother actually drove a Pinto when I was young, and I seem to remember that it went very slowly. Or maybe it was just my mother who drove slowly. Either way, my uncle had a Saint Bernard, and the combination of the dog and the Pinto made Stephen King's Cujo absolute nightmare fuel for me. I still shudder when I think about it.

Old cars and rabid dogs aside, I spent the morning writing down my ideas for these untitled witch books. I’m actually still plotting them out. I’ve decided to plot out all three at once, because, to me, they'll all be part of the same story. The first book will represent the waxing moon, or, for the Triple Goddess imagery in Wicca and other pagan spiritualities, the Maiden. The second book will represent the full moon, or the Mother. And the third book will be for the waning moon, or the Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess. I’m still doing my research, but I’m pretty excited where this trilogy is going so far.

I love to write out my story ideas, and I have boxes of old journals filled with notes from past books. After I brainstorm ideas, I’ll plan out and handwrite an outline. Sometimes I write the outline on paper, and sometimes I write it out on notecards that can be rearranged or shuffled as needed. These books feel as though they’re going to be pretty straightforward without too many storylines aside from the main one, so I’ll probably write the outlines in my journal. I rarely stick to the original outlines I come up with, because my characters often take over and lead the story in directions I never intended. But, again, this wandering, or veering from the outline, isn’t purposeless. It’s a beautiful process of letting my mind take me on a journey. Sometimes I don’t know where my mind and I will even end up. I just modify the outline as I go and let the story take me where it will.

Anyway, that’s the story of where I am right now with these new books, and how a bop in the nose started an avalanche that will make my already overcrowded Noodle Motel even more crowded. But that’s okay. I can double up a few guests to make room for these seven new people looking for a place to stay.

After all, who knows what’s good or bad? I sure don’t.