Privy Pithiness--A New Story Has Begun

I've been thinking a lot lately.

Usually, this is a dangerous thing. When I get into thoughtful moods, I isolate myself from most of what I normally do, retreat into my study, close the door, and ponder. It's usually the type of mood that allows me to build a new world, or develop a character as thoroughly as possible--hoping for the idea that will spark a new project. If I find a conflict that interests me, I plug it into a world that's been brewing on my world-building wall and give it to a character who resides, patiently waiting in my character files.

Sounds odd, doesn't it? I have whole worlds plotted out, mapped, and peopled waiting for a story to tell upon it. Universes reside in my study, which is a place where books and cats fight for space and I, sitting in my antique rectory leather chair, take up my pen and sketch out the disasters that some unlucky character gets to live through--or die in.

Two days ago, I wrote the first sentence of the project that's bubbling in my head.

My soul is dead.

As soon as those four words got their end-of-sentence period, I paused. I glanced around the study--at the maps of worlds teetering on the brink of existence. I chose one of the maps, unpinning it from the wall and propping against the books on my desk. As I stared at it, my mind was already putting small red marks on it: here is where the first battle will take place, the confrontation with the romantic interest, the blizzard, the injury...

While I was doing this, I reached for the character files. I spent an hour or so flipping through the characters and finally selected my main character. As soon as I did, I gave her her antagonist, her lover, her best friend, her distrusted ally--laying the sheets in a line on my desk just below the map.

I started a pot of coffee, made myself a sandwich, turned on my writing music and locked the door to my office. By the time my lunch was over, my world, my character, my conflict and my first line coalesced into the beginnings of a story.

The start of an existence: a place of turmoil, a character of doubts and fears and passions and ambitions, a world where the people are now living and breathing and walking about their daily routine and I, the ever-faithful scribe, record those events as they happen in my mind.

So yes--I've begun a new book, a new history of the galaxies that exist in my mind. And you, my friends, are now privy to the creation of it.

Welcome to Violenzia.