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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)
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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.