I ❤️ music. Songs fuel my imagination and make me go on tangents to people and situations never imagined. Rooms in a house, a catalog, a photograph — single, incongruous words do the same, or a scent, feelings, even déjà vu. And, of course, memories.

What I lack in time and discipline, I make up in creativity … locked in a closet as it may be. And in a closet it actually was. When I lived in the condo, I had no place to write, so we made the front hall closet my writing closet. Changed the door to a French door, added lighting, built a desk into the little nook around the corner where I used to stuff stuff.

for real

¨Often, songs help me create, and when I hear one of such songs, it brings me back to the scene, the characters, or whatever it evoked. The crux of Mine To Give came to me from a Sting song. I thought about it for who knows how long but couldn’t come up with a reason for what created the rift or fissure in the characters. I seldom try to, it just happens — that should have been the cue to leave it alone. But when I heard the song, I knew. And the song itself doesn’t have the answer, a tiny though important detail in it does — and it immediately brought up an image. I was so thrilled that the search was over and that it was something I could live with. My feelings then and still now.

MORE DIFFICULT TO COME BY WAS THE CRUX

of the novel. It occurred to me in the midst of writing, after hearing a song, as I was writing sin rumbo ni sentido (without direction or sense). Once incorporated and made to work and flow, I had doubts. What if a different decision was made? A more realistic and sensible, though much harder to make, decision?  So, I wrote a second unfolding. I will ask for advice and, if plausible, will also offer the alternate decision and slight changes to the last chapters.

from site page

The crux is a secret. From it stems the reason for the story, or what drives the central character, but it can branch off into being told or not. The novel, as it stands today, keeps the secret hidden. A second version, which exists only in my files, reveals it.

IN THE 2nd VERSION, THE ENDING REMAINS THE SAME

THE CHARACTERS DO NOT

I have not asked for advice, not my thing =( nor do I know many people I could ask. Thankfully, I stopped fretting over whether to change the dynamic in the novel. It is now part of the manuscript of A Tale To Tell — some of the characters from Mine To Give live in this body of work. I am currently at the point of editing the chapter where the secret comes out in the open. Well, not quite in the open, but enough. Unsure it will be totally out. Ever.