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You are here: Home / Amy Sue Nathan / Strange Things That (Only) Happen To Novelists

Strange Things That (Only) Happen To Novelists

September 11, 2017 18 Comments

I have a strong connection to my WIP. Some might say it’s an unnatural connection. You be the judge.

As committed as I am to launching Left to Chance, and as devoted as I am to Teddi Lerner and her love square (not a triangle! a square!) there is just something about South Haven, Michigan and Boop Peck that has captured my heart and my imagination more so than ever before. That doesn’t mean it’s been easy. I’m trudging through a chapter now and can’t quite settle on the players or the events. Yes, I’ve worked the Story Genius method with scene cards. Yes, I’ve outlined. Yes, I’ve brainstormed. I just keep changing my mind as to what works.

But today I sitting on my new comfy couch with my laptop, determined to polish ONE SCENE. Not a chapter. A scene. Hell, I’ll settle for a polished paragraph. I’m not even finished yet, it’s 7:30pm, and I’m getting a hunger headache, but I’m not stopping until that one scene is sparkly, at least for the moment. (Edited to add: I stopped mid-blog-post and had a veggie burger. With cheese. Headache averted.)

Part of that scene is a short paragraph, just a few lines, of a flashback for eighty-four-year-old Boop. She’s planning to bake what she calls a “talking cake” for her granddaughter, Hannah. (A cake made so that she can have a serious talk with her granddaughter.) This day, Boop’s going to make her own version of her grandmother’s lemon blueberry cake. South Haven is famous for its blueberry farms, and Boop remembers some important details of a long ago summer day of picking blueberries with her first love. It’s a lovely flashback if I do say so myself. I wrote it and was satiated. It was sweet and meaningful in the past and in the present story.

Within a moment of finishing the passage, I rose from the sofa to get a drink, opened the fridge, and these spilled out. I just stared. For about twenty seconds. I just stared.

Coincidence? Cosmic forces?

I’m going with the latter, at least for now.

What weird things have happened to you while you were writing fiction? This is only one of a few that go along with writing The Last Bathing Beauty. But there’s plenty of time for more stories.

And maybe it was just the universe telling me to wrap things up with Boop and get on with the posts about Left To Chance. It’s eighty days until book launch. Not that I’m counting. 😉

Amy xo

 

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Comments

  1. Jeanne Felfe says

    September 11, 2017 at 7:22 pm

    I’m about half-way through my ARC copy of Left to Chance and am loving it.

    hmmm… weird things that have happened while writing fiction. I don’t know how weird it is, but last summer I was struggling to find a story line for my local guild’s touch-themed contest. It was two days before the deadline and I had nothing. Zilch. Nadda.

    I walked into the front yard in time to see a neighbor teen hugging one of her female friends. I got a chill from the what-if that arose and immediately began a story about a gay teen in the 70’s. Although purely fiction, it was inspired by an older teen cousin who passed long ago, most likely from aids. I hadn’t really thought of him much in years.

    Anyway, the story poured from me in the way only “that” kind of story can. I had it polished by the deadline. The Silent Lie won 2nd place and is now proudly published in a Saturday Writers anthology.

    Reply
    • Amy Sue Nathan says

      September 11, 2017 at 8:11 pm

      I’d call that INSPIRATION!
      So glad you’re enjoying LtC!! <3

      Reply
  2. barbara claypole white says

    September 11, 2017 at 7:23 pm

    Love this. Definitely cosmic forces at work!

    Reply
    • Amy Sue Nathan says

      September 11, 2017 at 8:12 pm

      I know, right???

      Reply
  3. Beverly Turner says

    September 11, 2017 at 9:35 pm

    It’s a message from Boop. She approves. 🙂

    Reply
    • Amy Sue Nathan says

      September 12, 2017 at 8:54 am

      Oh, I love that and agree, Beverly! 🙂

      Reply
  4. Lori Nelson Spielman says

    September 12, 2017 at 5:24 am

    I love to think that cosmic forces are at play. Makes me feel less alone while writing. Boop has found a great home with you! I’m excited for you, Amy! (Oh, and Beverly Turner, I love your comment!)

    Reply
    • Amy Sue Nathan says

      September 12, 2017 at 8:55 am

      Me too, Lori. I like to think the story is meant to be written. This one is basically demanding it. Now let’s just hope someone wants to publish it! :-O Miss you!

      Reply
  5. Holly Robinson says

    September 12, 2017 at 8:46 am

    Love this post, Amy. I definitely think the muses guide us in mysterious ways. I started my new novel–one that has both a contemporary plot line & an historical plot line, with a mystery that connects the two–because I saw a print of a beautiful painting, a woman in a garden, when I was on an historic house tour. I asked the docent who she was, and it was as if that woman, New England’s best-selling female poet of the 19th century, got in my car and wouldn’t leave. Things kept happening that made me notice her, and suddenly it was as if I was hearing her name EVERYWHERE, when really I’d never heard of her before that day.

    Reply
    • Amy Sue Nathan says

      September 12, 2017 at 8:56 am

      That’s amazing, Holly. I love the way a story takes us by the hand and says “tell me.” xoxo

      Reply
  6. Amy Sue Nathan says

    September 12, 2017 at 8:59 am

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