Amorina Rose Writes: Paranormal brought me back to writing but it’s not my chosen genre ( A kind of Part 2 to a previous post)

This post is about being on the road and not understanding that the things we are finding, doing or simply passing, all have a purpose and a meaning. Sometimes sitting here calling myself a writer is a little surreal. Why has it taken so long? Last post reassured me a little reminding me that the books I had read over the years were part of my journey even if I didn’t know I was travelling. The length of time it took to jump into the big black hole of the written word is really more about life and how you juggle what you do with what you want to do and what you dream of doing. Wow, that was a complicated sentence but hopefully you know what I mean. I don’t for as minute believe you will find my life fascinating but I hope you might find bits of yourselves and your own lives in this. I hope it makes you consider taking the leap into something new even if like me you are slow to find the courage.

So where did I leave off in the tale of what led to writing but not to the genre I write in? Right! I had scared myself out of reading anything in the horror, ghosts, and vampire’s line by having some horrendous nightmares. What came with it though was no more writing and very little reading. By then I was in the military and circumstances were not conducive to either writing or reading or anything much. There were the odd times filled in nicely by the occasional Mills and Boon romances but not much more. Subconsciously that period of time was a kind of research into romances because although I do want to try my hand at various things, right now, contemporary romance is what I am writing. I think there are signs along the way leading us to our dreams, even subconscious ones. However sometimes we don’t see them clearly enough as pointers to our dreams; we are afraid.

I may have dabbled but mostly I mostly ignored the pull of pen to paper. Did I miss the stories in my head? Maybe a little but I had become very practical and practical leaves very little time for escapism. Story-telling is very time consuming as we all know. Fate however decided to take a hand and led me to my second encounter with vampires; all because I was part of a young couple trying to save money for a house and going out was limited. My now ex-husband and I often went to the drive-in. It was a cheap night out and fun. It just so happened this one weekend they were showing a double. One was a thriller involving law enforcement and the second movie was “Hannah, Queen of the Vampires.” Needless to say I didn’t want to see the second one but did enjoy the thrillers so was persuaded.

The first movie was great but the second so bad I didn’t mind it despite continually covering my eyes or looking away something that amused Gary endlessly. At some stage of the night my husband began saying how tired he was and how glad he would be to get home. He was shift worker and had just come off night shift so I didn’t think anything of it. We watched the movie, ate popcorn and then went home. He did yawn a great deal. I do remember that.

Arriving at our house the evil man continued telling me how tired he was and practically chased me into the house brushing his teeth and jumping into bed before I could finish boiling the kettle for a cup of tea. I took my time as women often do getting ready for bed, then grabbed a book but worried I might wake him I ended up turning out the light. No sooner had I made myself comfortable when Gary suddenly rolled over on top of me and said in the worst possible Transylvanian accent “I am going to drink your blood” and aimed for my neck. Bad accent or not I screamed the place down? Did he laugh himself stupid? Absolutely!

It was so well formulated, his little dastardly plan from start to finish, that despite my near heart-attack I had to appreciate his cleverness. It got funnier when I told the story to others often embellishing it just to make it more entertaining. I liked telling stories and I had forgotten that fact. I suddenly realised how much I had missed the scribbling and the endless trips to the library. I missed my reading; I missed my silly little notes in notebooks.

I started a long distance writing course and was told I needed to learn to write just a paragraph, then just a short story before attempting a novel. No it’s not what you may be thinking. I wasn’t a bad writer, I was worse. I was a raver and needed discipline desperately. I can take criticism but sometimes the right word at the wrong time can take away your confidence. I stopped the course and despite being drawn to further education I put all on hold until the kids were older. I then applied to do a creative writing course at the local TAFE. The course was cancelled so I chose a Japanese language course but then right in the middle of that a woman came in talking about a Preparation for University certificate.

I had run from University once but now I was running straight back. I loved it and after much debate ended up in teaching. Now what was interesting about this was that one of our subjects (I was majoring in English) involved books for young people. I fell in love and in my quest for the perfect assignment I read hundreds and hundreds of beautiful books in all kinds of genres. I read Charlotte’s Web, the Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time and one of my most treasured favourites The Secret Garden. Have you noticed my path seem to always connect to books? I just didn’t think I could do anything with it.

We spent a lot of time on adult literature and films, and looked closely at anything Australian. This included authors like David Malouf, Patrick White, and famous fiction like Picnic at Hanging Rock and many of the classics. Now it wasn’t the first time I had read these books as I told you last post but to be thrown into the plethora of ultimate imagination at that stage of life made a deep impression. I was that child at the Paddington Public Library devouring everything in sight but there was more. In doing that particular degree I was forced to express myself constantly and often about books in written form. One of the best experiences I think I had was writing an extension piece to Ursula LeGuinn’s The Left Hand of Darkness. I thought I was on the road to becoming a teacher. I was but I was picking up luggage containing snippets about the writing world. Who would have thought? Another missed sign?

Alas gaining further education comes with a price and in my case the cost was the marriage so earning a living supporting three kids took priority. Who had time to even think about writing, right? I bet you out there reading this (I hope) can relate in some way to your life. I am pretty sure you have all had things that seem to take precedence and now you wonder why you let that happen. The thing is I did think about writing, I just didn’t give it precedence. I called it a hobby; I played with ideas, wrote poetry but yielded to the demands of earning the living. How do some people manage to do it all? My biggest fear is that I have never been good enough or I could do it all. Look at people like J.K. Rowling who don’t let anything get in the way.

So time passed and I had grown up children, had discovered travelling but had stopped thinking I could do more with my life. I didn’t know what more was, or if it even was desirable. However the University years had cemented in me a love of Young Adult fiction so noticing a trend I investigated. Can you guess? Yes, the Twilight Series. Don’t even think of saying anything! I love this series and would put it into the curriculum if I could. Why not? It discusses a better way to live that is disciplined and has rules set in place to protect and not to hurt others. Respect for life is woven throughout the novels. It has respect for sex at the right time and for the right reason. It advocates working together to face evil and that means accepting one another. Once again the paranormal world let itself be known and once again I was led towards the written word. Every time the impact has been strong enough to make me reflect.

Someone, something was reminding me of the power of the word and the way books open our hearts and minds to possibilities. I had to wake up, open that window and see what was outside so I could walk out of my self-imposed limitations. Of course I got serious about writing. Was it straight away? No! I just had to live a little longer to have the courage to get to today but I am doing it. Is the paranormal world the genre I have chosen? Well not for the moment but then an eclectic reader may just turn out to be an eclectic writer. What are your possibilities and what are you going to do about them? Are you ignoring signs? Stop banging on the window and open it instead.