Here I am, taking a breath and surfacing for a moment visiting some of my favorite places. 

It’s been a busy time as I complete my novel … doing the editing and “putting together” work … proof-reading and re-writes. Have barely surfaced for a breath and as I do that very left-brained organizational work, I let my right brain out to play, meditating with my muse, writing out into the second or third book of the series.

All while doing my “day job” which supports the rest of it but oh how I would dearly love the writing to do that. So, while I have been absent, I have not been idle! 

I will dawdle here a while and enjoy the sights and richness as I prime the well.

As I played at the Taverna earlier today and wrote about some of the books I have so loved, it brought me to thinking about what brought me to this point in time.

I’ve always been a writer, but never really claimed it. It was just something I did. I had a dream a long while back about writing the “great American Science Fiction novel” … but never quite did it. I’d start … then stop. It “wasn’t happening.”  I wasn’t creative enough, I thought … didn’t have what it took. Finally, after years of dreaming about it, I gave up the dream of writing novels, though I felt them very much present in me.  

I didn’t believe in myself at all … though the thing I continued to always do was write … in one form or another. 

I dutifully worked as an RN for years … having gone to school and trained right out of high school … applying myself to the very mainstream and scientific pathways and was great at it. At the same time though, I studied many many diverse and holistic things: spiritual paths, astrology, different healing modalities … all the things that could satisfy my immense and very mystical curiosity. And through it all I wrote … and wrote … and wrote.

But didn’t know that I was actually doing who I am!

Then a little over a year ago … the novel struck … magic happened. Long long story about how it all came to be … very synchronistic all of it … but now I and a friend together are writing this novel …. actually more like three … and the inspiration and fun just continues to pour through. It was not at all planned … we never talked about writing together … it just happened!

So now it has all but taken over my life … and it is a total labor of love! Characters wake me in the night and I must get up to write whatever plot line is coming forward or I don’t sleep! I go out to dinner with my husband, and inevitably … as he sees the faraway look in my eyes … I’ll hear, “You’re writing, aren’t you?” (bless him he’s a saint as I’ve been so totally encompassed in this.)

And all of this … while still working a “day job.”

So, as I’ve been here at Riversleigh this short while and starting to muse more widely, I know now this was all perfect … it all had to happen as it did … giving me the rich experience I can now bring to my writing. I would never have dreamed it would happen this way … but I have learned in my life that if you follow your nose and your resonance … somehow you find yourself where you are meant to be … even if you thought you’d find your way there.

The most beautiful things can evolve from the strangest pathways.

Donna

As I wander the grounds, I remember a sunset that set me on my journey. Ironically it began with another pathway that led me far far away. I am on my way to magic, I know.

Almost breathless I peek in … where am I going? What is this about?  

The invitation beckoned and I was intrigued from the start.    

Breaking away from the well-worn path … I am dizzy with anticipation and excitement.

One little step at a time or swept away I will be in the swirls of the current.  

I have begun …