Welcome!

I'm glad you're here. Throw on your 'comfies' - you know, a pair of those loose cotton pajama pants that had to have been invented by a woman after a binge of pasta and wine - and grab a cup of herbal tea, coffee, or Shiraz, what ever suits you.

Let's sit on the porch and talk a while.

My porch is always comfortable. The iron furniture is designed for your back, the cushions deep and inviting. There's a hammock if you prefer, and a wonderful view into the national forest, a waterfall just beyond the edge of the trees. The temperature is always comfortable, the glass walls are closed in the winter with a nice fire in the grate. When it is warmer, we open the french doors and allow the breeze to gently flow.


Consider yourself special...this place is by invitation only, a special place where I meet with people creative enough to make the leap into what Stephen King refers to as a kind of telepathy: I imagine it, put it into words and send the image to you. If you are receptive and have a bit of creativity, you join me. And if you are fan of Steve's work, you know the leap can be great. But we 'constant readers' go there unquestioningly.

In contrast, I could only hope you stick out the first few entries, wade through the poor sentence structure (remember, Steve taught English when he wrote his first hit Carrie) I majored in PR because, well the math and technical language skills suck. But, like my hero Steve, I can live in my head long enough to tell a story. So here we go...

As a trusted friend, family, professional acquaintance, or soul mate -- and most importantly avid readers and fellow writers -- I'm inviting you to venture into the world in my head. I'll share more than you ever wanted to know, and introduce you to my motivations to write. Eventually I'll even let you meet my children of muse.

These children, a bit younger than my twenty-two-year old biological son, have been around for a long while. I first dreamt my protagonist while sitting in front of the window in a lake house we rented from back in the early 1990s. This 'half house' (another story for another time) had no central heat or air, only a wood burning fire insert, and screened windows to catch the lake breeze.

Mid to late summer required that windows stay open at night to allow for comfortable sleeping. Unfortunately, being in the cove that lead to a marinas where locals docked their fishing boats, this meant that many summer nights the sound of drunken fishermen lost in the moonless labyrinth of narrow passages would disturb my slumber. Often times I awoke to the sound of rocks being lobbed onto our dock, just down the hill and across the laurel thicket below the bedroom window (aka a poor man's navigation system). I would often lie awake after this type of disturbance and enjoy the rare quiet a woman with a preschooler and needy, controlling spouse rarely finds. These precious moments allowed my mind to wonder, my rich fantasy life to take hold and create stories.

One particular night a group of very drunk, very loud fishermen woke me. Deep into a case or two of Bud, they got louder and laughed harder with each thunk of a rock onto the wooden docks that protrude from high dirt banks. I went to the window, sat on the cheaply carpeted floor, and inhaled the night smells. As the fingernail moon glistened off the shroud of fog that always settles in to the coves of Lake Burton, I began to fantasize about a woman sitting where I sat, dressing in the early morning, and a man in a boat, drinking coffee and watching, fascinated by her silhouette.

With legal pad and a pen, I went downstairs and began writing ...no plot, no story line, no names, or character details, just that one scene that I had to capture. The next morning I tried to share the story with my then spouse and as usual was cut off mid-sentance so he could tell me his 'better' story idea. (One of many reasons he is a 'former').

But the idea had taken hold and would not let go. The next week at the newspaper where I worked, the editor and I were proof reading - he the copy, me ads I had begrudgingly sold that week to help pay the rent and buy groceries (I had a brand new degree in PR and a fan base for my monthly column, I was a journalist, not a sales person and after two years of selling ads the chip was still firmly on my shoulder). The editor asked how my weekend had gone. For some reason I started telling him the story of the lost BUIs (Boating Under the Influence for those of you not in the know) and suddenly I was sharing what was to become known as 'my story'.

I was half way into my description of the lake, the people, the scene when, par for the course with men at that point in my life, he turned to me with a strange kind of look on his face and interrupted. "Did you write this down?" I immediately choked. One other time I had been in a situation with an editor who, when the subject of my desire to write fiction came up, looked at me with a mocking grin, hidden by good-ole-boy's pat on the shoulder to the 'silly little lady', and said "you can't write fiction Rosanne, you haven't suffered enough to have a story to tell." Well that brought back shades of Elliott Wiggington making a similarly dismissing comment to me in an elevator at Thirty Rock to none other that Tom Brokaw. But that's another story.

I just stood there staring in dumbfounded shock wondering how the hell he know anything about my life or experiences beyond assumptions and second hand information. The details of my experiences with emotionally abusive men were not common knowledge, and I had never shared anything with this Editor, sometimes locally referred to as the "Paper's Idiot". Full of his own arrogance and assumptions (wait, isn't that the first rule of journalism, don't' assume...)he certainly had never bothered to ask anything about my life.

So there I was, five-years later reliving those two humiliating and infuriating moments when the idea of my writing was uttered outside of the safety of my head. As a flush began creeping up my neck, I knew I had said too much.
I braced myself for ridicule and took what was - at that point in my maturity and non-confrontational style - my usual way out of an embarrassing situation. I bailed. "Nope, went back to bed. But unlike other this story just kind of stuck in my head."

A good foot taller than my 5'2" frame, the editor learned over, close enough that I could smell the Tuesday morning deadline coffee and stale cigarettes on his breath, and said "You really need to write this down, it's good, pretty darn good." Tapping his blue proofing pen on my arm for emphasis,"... you know we occasionally get news releases from a publishing house about a local woman who used to work here. She's written a number of romance novels. Not something I read, but she's pretty friendly and her husband runs ads for his business. I'll bet the billing clerk would give you her contact info."

With out a clue that he'd just help set the course of my next two decades, he turn back to the white sheets covered with light blue grid lines, and resumed marking copy. "I'll bet she'd meet you for lunch one day and give you some pointers on how to write that story."
I just stood there with my mouth open. But I did make the call.

This was the first in a long line of local women writers for a living whose words and advice I collected and stored for future reference. It was like eating a turkey at Thanksgiving...the thing is huge and you slice off the easiest, closest piece and nibble until you are full. You freeze the rest, and then later, when the muse is hungry again, you take out a bit more. You add it to the stock pot of information, ideas, character traits, and situations. You let it simmer, eat a bit, and preserve the rest. It is a slow process, often lasting years or even decades. But each piece you throw into the stew, that creative soup, flavors it a bit more knowing eventually it will make one hell of a good meal.

So today you are invited to share why and how I created that long simmering stew. The actual taste has been sampled by literally only 6 people in this time and space. Most of those dear and kind souls didn't get through the first chapter it was so poorly developed. Their limited feedback or kind silence spoke volumes. I love them all for humoring me and getting me past that first real barrier of letting someone read 'the story'. No hard feelings, I look back at it and completely understand. I a word, it sucked.

Knowing the flavor was flat, no base, or high notes I've added some herbs, extracted some other ingredients and changed the flavor. Today is a holiday at the end of a long weekend. The muse is hungry so the pot is simmering the plot line has changed, the overarching of the story its self is very different.

And I am once again ready to let someone have a taste. Well, almost ready.
First, you'll have to indulge me while I grow a thick skin and share a story or two with you on how I got to this time and place - moved from being the doormat to the Mystic Diva - the name of this series, BTW. If you'll stick with me - and being the creative soul I know you are- enjoy the process, we'll get there. One step at a time...

(c) 2008 Rosanne Chastain Short