Spaghetti and Gingerbread tea.

I've heard it said that men's minds are like waffles: their thoughts are organized into neat little squares, and the syrup never spills over into another square.

 We women? Our minds are cooked spaghetti, and our thoughts wind about, beginning and ending with one other. Add sauce to that.

Yesterday, I had a pretty clear vision of four books on which I was working. I would then see how far this would go, and plan on evergreen marketing all of them.

So much for that.

The teapot went off today, its siren alerting me to add three projects to my list, so I hurriedly grabbed a notepad and made some lists. Seven is a lucky number, is it not?

Identity

As I explained, I've been a communicator and a storyteller all my life. I come by it naturally, because my family tells fairly famous family legends, over and over. What's a girl to do, but pick that up?

In high school, I was a speaker. In college, I was a speaker, and morphed into an editor when the newspaper needed bodies. Lo and behold, we were getting somewhere on this trek down the highway to fame. I hit the road for radio and BOY! That was fun for awhile. I was in sales, I've worked in a bank and a call center.

I transcribed immigrant interviews at one job, medical interviews at another. A coworker once informed me she couldn't quite "get" me because I "use too many words." Sheesh. It's my Mother Tongue. That kind of hurt. I had avoided the English major in college due to the attitude of the freshman teaching assistant.

I wrote grocery lists, To Do lists, lists of things I wanted to do to my house when I was debt-free, lists of vacations I wanted to take, and lists of cards I should send. I wrote blogs and scrapped them. I wrote poetry and songs. I wrote commercials. I wrote Public Service Announcements and newscasts for seven states and three Canadian provinces.

I started the novel four years ago. I have never considered myself a WRITER until my own mother read six pages of my novel and begged for more.

#somethingaboutsophia #historicalfiction #northdakota

The Beginning

In 2009, my life was going through some rapid change. It didn't feel like anything I couldn't handle, because I was at peace with all of the movement. Over our frequent "soul coffee chat" one afternoon, my friend Tammy uttered five words that changed almost everything:  "You should write a novel."

About what? How do I write a novel? I'm not that interesting-- which is a total lie, because I AM that interesting. Each of us has a story to tell, and usually five or six if we stop long enough, and get quiet, before we begin to tell them.

A novel? Who's going to read my novel? Why would I want them to? Granted, I had written and edited the college newspaper, and blogged for years, but lately most of the writing I'd done was relegated to Facebook statuses, or "statii." Being Greek, I feel justified in making up appropriate language.

Well, then. A novel, I mused. Let me doodle about that a while.

Type.

I've been writing stories since I was a child, creating alternate worlds for myself, with a different bedroom, a life in which I had a twin sister instead of a mean brother, and a dog.

I wrote on a green typewriter older than my mother, and the more I typed, the prouder I became of my clickety-clacking speed and rhythm. I typed pen pal letters. I typed homework assignments. Then Dad got a computer and I typed *sigh* love letters.

Oh, they were good, too. Dot matrix and full of daily activities and devotion. His were handwritten. Maybe I missed out.

Now, all these years later, I am typing four big projects on two computers and an iphone. I never leave home without a flash drive.  I promise myself not to miss a thing. After all, I have a type.