From The Beginning

            Of course my stories start with an idea, don’t everyone’s?  For me, that idea comes from something in my daily life. It might be feeding the dogs at night in a brightly lighted room, with the world outside the many windows completely dark.  Who knows what or who might be watching from beyond the range of light?  One book started from the first time we rented a motor home, and were snuggled together in the overhead, with rain pattering on the roof just above our heads. It seems my “story fairy” lurks just beyond my reach, waiting to poke me with another idea.

            One day she came at me with a load of bricks.  I was working in one of our many garden areas in Southern California, waging another battle in the never ending war with my nemesis the snail.  I’d tried some of the more natural remedies: the salt, the beer, the traps, the diatomaceous earth.  Everything worked “sort of” but nothing made a serious dent in the slimy vegetable eating flower destroying evil overlord garden molesters, except for that gooey thick glop in the squeeze bottle. Squirt out a line of that (I called it setting up the buffet, yeah I’m like that sometimes) and buh- bye slimy mollusks .

            So here I am whistling out of tune as I pull on garden gloves and reach for the magic elixir. And I hear a voice in my head.  Which, in and of itself isn’t that surprising, I’ve been hearing voices all my life, the question is whether or not I’m going to listen to them.  This time I did, since the voice was very masculine and the words were very clear: “You do not want to do that.”  And I was suddenly deep within an ancient forest, surrounded by very tall trees.  Okay, I admit to being a huge fan of Bill Cosby, and this did seem something along the lines of the Noah skit.  Except...it was very, very real. 

            I went into the house, clicked on the computer and started writing.  I didn’t stop for much, other than work, cooking meals, caring for dogs, cleaning the house (okay, I’m allowed a bit of a fib, it is my story after all) and doing laundry, until I was finished, a long month later.  Which meant writing well into the night after everything was as quiet as it could be in that neighborhood.  My memory tells me extremely quiet but a week without police helicopters over head at least once was a very dull week.

            At the end of this marathon I had cramps in my hands, dark circles under my eyes, a mountain of “non essential” dirty laundry, and a good start to a story that gave me happy chills.  I described my hero as reminiscent of statues erected to the gods, which worked but didn’t make me totally happy.  Until I attended the next National show for my breed where HE showed up, Southern drawl, multiple degrees and all.  And Mykhael was fully formed.  Minus the Southern drawl since, after all, he was more Akkadian than Alabaman. But for the rest...oh, yeah.  But you be the judge. ~Mona