What is the greatest joy of writing for you?
Different kinds of writing bring up different types of joy for me. When I'm writing Mex--the protagonist in my mystery series--it's the sheer joy of writing of a life lived from a spiritual perspective. 24/7/365. It's how I live my life so it's easy for me, fun to live (and therefore fun to write), and generally a good time.
When I'm writing spiritual nonfiction or, really, teaching, the joy is from having overcome some trouble and mastered it enough so I can use it as an example. It reminds me that we're all growing, healing, and doing the best we can here on our lovely planet.
The other day I wrote a blistering complaint letter to the president of my health insurance company because I'd had it with the ten-week runaround they'd been giving me about a prescription. That was a laugh riot because I was writing about a rash on my face that itches like a ... well, a word that rhymes with it and I was mad mad mad at their rhetoric so I wrote the letter with a "chorus," which was, MY FACE STILL ITCHES. I added that every other paragraph! I'm pretty sure I'll hear from them soon with the right medicine.
Writing is really how I best understand myself, and the world we inhabit.
How did you come to write The Mex Mysteries?
I had gone to the White Mountains in Arizona to finish my second book of prayers for peace. I left the cabin where I was staying and went to the post office to send it to my editor in New Mexico, and as I returned home, it began to snow. It was Valentine's Day.
When I got back to the house, it was snowing in earnest. I sat down at the kitchen table and I heard a voice say distinctly, "So, you gonna write my story now?"
I looked around the house. I was alone. I had music, coffee, cigarettes and chocolate. So I said back to the voice, "Sure."
Eleven days later, I was snowed in--so much so that my car had disappeared--and there was a 350-page manuscript on the coffee table. I'd met Mex, who I, apparently, had been considering for quite some time, and followed the story I discovered inside a secret room in my computer.
The night before I left the mountains, I watched the movie of Brigadoon. Friends dug out my car, and I drove back to Phoenix the next day. On the way there, I stopped at a big bookseller to use their facilities and my eyes were riveted to a book I saw at eye level on the way to the loo: Scottish Witchcraft today. I knew the next Mex was about Brigadoon and Witches.
That's how it's been ever since. I'm guided on what to write, when, and how, and I've been writing a book about every other year for twenty years.
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