The Great Adventure

I’m in transition at present.

Yesterday was the first final exam that i was responsible for. The last one comes on Wednesday. In the meantime I am also responsible for finishing up the pages for the Southwestern Spirit magazine and preparing to make two writer’s workshop visits to Burton Academy and to Ozark Academy the week after finals. And I have an Insight article due on Wednesday.

And yet I am itching to begin writing on my next novel.

My living situation is quite different than usual. My grown daughter is living with us, trying to pay bills while she looks for work. My son and his wife and their 11 month old son is living with us as well. That will continue until he ships out for boot camp and the army in August. And we have a houseful of baby furniture, dogs and cats. My otherwise quiet mornings are filled with a chattering, crying baby around my feet. Where did the writer’s solitude go?

And still I must write.

I know I will find a way, IF I can see where the story is going and even more importantly, where it starts. To help with that, I have been reading Cormac McCarthy, whose sparse style and highly accurate dialogue inspires me to no end.

And then it happened. I was reading my third book by him, “The Road,” which won him the Pulitzer Prize, and I was suddenly seeing in my mind’s eye how I wanted to start the complex story that makes up my third volume of the Champion series. It’s not everything, but it’s a beginning.

The vision that I need is finally flashing before my eyes.

And for me, seeing is believing. Knowing what to write is 90 percent of the battle.

The rest, as they say, is cake.