Red Room Where the Writers Are

...or so I thought. 

This year I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  I've had friends participate in years past but I honestly didn't think I could write 50,000 words in a month so I didn't want to set myself up for failure.  Maybe it wasn't the right time, or maybe the right story hadn't worked itself out in my mind.  This year, everything is clicking.

Eleven years ago, while I was pregnant with my oldest, I had a dream.  I dreamed of angels and satan and the destruction of the world.  Some of the things in that dream reminded me of something straight out of a horror film.  Others, well, let's just say I could feel the angel's arms and wings wrapped tightly around me.  I felt him protecting me and the child I carried.  When I woke, I saw a white feather on the pillow beside me.  Before you call me a loon, I'll admit to having a white dove but her cage was in the other room.  It still freaked me out to see that feather after I'd been cocooned within those wings.  

That dream left an impression on me.  Over the years it churned around in my head but I could never write it down.  This year, while thinking during October of what I could write, I saw a white feather in my yard.  I knew it was time to tell this story.  It may not be accurate to my dream but I know where the inspiration came from.  My characters have shown themselves to me and I have page after page of info written down about them.

I don't think I've ever had anything flow so smoothly in all my life.  I managed to create a full outline for my story aa well as the character profiles.  I have a course of action and while I'm sitting here typing away, the story is unfolding in my mind like a motion picture.  I can see the characters and the scenes, all I have to do it let it spill out my fingertips and onto the keyboard.  

For many years, I've been writing but I've never been able to put myself out there and try to get something published.  Mostly I write from my dreams - I figured if it worked for Stephen King, it would work for me.  If nothing else, it purges those dreams from my system.  But after seeing them on paper or rereading the words on my screen, it all sounds hokey.  I sit here and think, 'who would want to read this?'  So many stories are left unfinished, untold, because I don't have the confidence in myself and my work to finish and submit them.  This year's NaNoWriMo project is going to change all that.

When I can't carry my laptop with me, I drag around my notebook and work on the outline detail or character bios.  I have enough material planned out for at least another 25,000 words.  With the 20,000 I already have that will still put me shy of my goal but I'm confident I can go back and add enough detail to put me well over the 50,000 word mark.  I also have additional stories spinning off from this one and when I think of things I jot them down.  I no longer care if anyone else wants to read these stories, I have to tell them, end of story.   

November is for writing, December will be clean up and editing, and I will submit this manuscript by the end of the year.  No more putting it off, no more confidence issues.  This is the right time, the right story, and I'm actually looking forward to the end of this month.  I'm eager to see where I can go with this, to see if I can achieve a goal.  Martin Luther King may have said, "I have a dream," but I did too.  I had a dream and it inspired me.  Now my dream is to get published.  Here's to making dreams come true.