What it's all about.

Current word count: 17,571
Current mood: Tired, but happy.
Currently listening to while writing: KT Tunstall's Drastic Fantastic, KT Tunstall's Acoustic Extravaganza.


It occurred to me a couple of days ago that I've been using this forum to write primarily about the process of writing this book, but very little about the book itself. Well, that's hardly fair.

The genesis of the book I'm currently writing started with a dream I had about eight years ago. We were living in the DC area at the time, and I woke up one morning fresh from an incredible dream in which I saw a singular vision. A girl, dressed in a tattered white nightgown, emerging from the woods, looking vacant, weary and haunted. And she was walking straight towards me. And that was it. But I awoke from the dream having some subconscious understanding that this girl had been kidnapped, stolen from her hometown and friends and loved ones nine years earlier. I didn't know why, but it was specifically nine years. Not five, not eight, not ten. Nine. And she was emerging from these woods after nine years of hell, having somehow escaped from her captivity. I knew that she was about to embark on a long journey of healing, reuniting with her community and rediscovering how to live. I knew that this story was not about what happened to her in captivity (although it would deal with that somewhat), but about what happens after. About the effect her return has on her and on the community in which she grew up. Even in my groggy state, I knew that this dream was not simply a metaphor for something else. It's happened only two or three times in my life, but it has happened, that I've awakened from a dream like this, knowing without a shred of doubt that this dream is the foundation for a book, and nothing else.

Right away, even while lying there in bed, I had the basic outline of the story, many of the characters, the central themes, even a title. The Painted Lady. I didn't know exactly what the title meant or how it pertained to the story but I began to have an idea. In the eight years since, I've revisited the idea numerous times, each time fleshing the story out more and more and giving more depth to the characters and their actions. And each time the idea came back to me, I knew that I wasn't ready to write it. I knew I would have to mature quite a bit, as a person and, particularly, as a writer. That's not to say that I'm an incredibly mature person and/or writer now, nor to say that I've got the book entirely figured out. In fact, much of it is coming to me and taking shape as I go. And I'm sure quite a bit of the writing to come will surprise me. But I'm staying true to the original outline that came to me with that dream eight years ago.

When people ask me what the book I'm writing is about, I give them a sentence or two describing the basic concept. But I almost always add: It's about healing.

More to come . . .