I’m Writing!!!!!!!

Folks wanting to write a book or even those that love to read, yet have no desire to pen their own tome always ask me the same question whenever I talk about my novel, “Address: House of Corrections.”

How did you do it?

And the answer to this question – especially once I tell them that “A:HC” is 424 pages long – becomes that much more valuable a secret to them as I pause to formulate my response.

The reason I pause is because it really ain’t that deep an answer. And i know without fail that person is going to look at me and blink as if I’m holding out on them or something.

The truth of the matter is, I didn’t cast a magic spell or hypnotize myself (is that even possible?) All I did was sit my ass down at my desk and write. Everyday. For an hour.

I learned that mornings are best for me.

When I was younger, midnight through 3am were my golden hours. But now that I’ve been blessed to walk the earth for 40 plus years, I’m lucky if I can keep my eyes open long enough to see the beginning of the 11 o’clock news.

The bottom line is —  I discovered that I do my best writing and am ultimately more creative when I’m sleepy.

And to make things even more interesting, my desk – which was actually a Target bought card table in the kitchen of our studio apartment – faced a wall that overlooked the alley next to a Russian bath house.

From crackheads to hairy mobsters, I saw it all and trust, I had more than enough reasons to be distracted.

In the beginning, I was. In fact, some mornings, my husband Ryeal would ask me – as I starred at a blinking cursor on an empty lap top screen – what I was doing. And after I snapped back at the man enough times -” I’m writing!!!!!” – he stopped asking. Poor baby. 🙂

You see, I was just determined. Stubborn enough to believe that I could unplug from the world and train my brain that this was the time that I was supposed to be writing.

Scared to death, I stepped out on faith, arrested my body to be obedient to the process and anchored myself in the belief that my words would come.

Kevin Costner said – if you build it, they will come, right?

Yeah.  But one thing Mr. “Field of Dreams”  failed to mention was that my words – all 128,744 of them – were carpooling and delayed in traffic on California’s 405. LOL!