Different types of writing-- and an epiphany

               I do different types of writing, depending on my mood. There's writing for my stepsons, writing for my family, friends...

               There's writing I do for public viewing...

               ...and then there's the writing I do for myself.

               Sometimes, those lines cross.

               The most prevalent form of this occurrence actually involves a project that began as a simple "this is for me" story that I began when I was in my late teens/early twenties.

               It was a story I started with no intention of ever making it public, just a way to pass the time and dabble around in my head, to see what came of it.

               Over the course of the last ten years (give or take), that short story/idea drabble stuck at the back of my mind, waiting for its time to come around again.

               Earlier this year, I had an epiphany, while I was working on another story (supposedly having nothing to do with the first). This was a story I'd been working on (off and on) for about five years, and like the first, it was a "just for me" story-- one of those I write and fall into and read over and over again for my own enjoyment (I've always thought of it as my personal version of a housewife novel).

               The wheels in my head began to turn as I took a step back to look at the parallels underlying those two stories, and as I began to connect the dots, more possible ideas began to unfold.

               The nights that followed that epiphany were a blur as I fell headlong into the brainstorm that came up as the ideas collided, and out of it came an idea for a new story-- not just the first story I began all those years ago, not the one I've been tinkering on for five years-- but something altogether new, transformed by the colliding and merging of one story with another.

               The lead in both, of course, is a strong female sort, a reluctant participant in the unfolding events of her life. And I won't drop spoilers here, because I'm having way too much fun brainstorming and working out all of the details and putting the events down onto paper to cheapen them by dropping spoilers.

               What I can tell you is that it is a fantasy story, one with epic battle scenes, epic character development, and yes, unfortunately there may be some epic deaths.

               I can tell you that it will involve science fiction, fantasy, romance, angst, heartbreak, love, hate, and betrayal. That it will span not just one lifetime, on one world, but a few lifetimes in a few worlds, and that there will be one central link between each of the lives shown, and each of the worlds.

               I can tell you that the story may turn out to involve even more than a few lifetimes, or a few worlds-- that this may be just the tip of a very large iceberg.

               I can tell you that I make my characters as human as possible-- they make mistakes, they screw up, they have obvious flaws. I set out to make them as real as I can possibly make them, because I want you to feel not just for them, but with them-- I want you to see their world through their eyes. If I haven't done that, then I haven't done enough.

               As I work on these stories-- poring through piles of notes and word documents of notes and ideas and try to make sense of it all, to transform it into the story that's dying to come out, I hope more than anything that the love I've come to feel for these stories, that the passion I have for the lives and the people and the events I put onto paper comes through in the work, and I hope I do it enough justice that when it's finished, you, my readers, will come to love the stories and the characters as much as I do.