Anna DeStefano's Blog

“We write to taste life twice…” ~Anais Nin

I love this quote, even though it’s been a little while since I’ve tasted my life nearly as much as I’ve survived it. And tasting… Well, there’s something that sounds like thriving in the word. Something that’s gotten me thinking.

 There’s a lot of fight or flight in my work-in-progress. (Well, at least Secret Legacy was my WIP before December happened. ETA to getting back to Sarah Temple and the dreams that will either save or destroy her–Feb. 1st. . so stay tuned for upcoming dream theory posts.) A lot of fighting adversity and challenging limits and refusing to give up–this is a paranormal thriller series, right? But now that the Legacy world is built and it’s dream theory other-worldliness is grounded in its altered realty, I’m finding as I reread what’s already out of my brain and down on paper that there’s space for more in Book 2. More richness. More character. More…flavor.

My heroine in Dark Legacy spent the entire book running from danger and surviving a world of revelation crashing down on top of her. Her sister in Secret Legacy, I’ve known from the start will be running toward something instead of away.The twins’  conflict needs to ramp to the next level. They need the truth. Their legacy needs to become a future to fight for, not just a past to struggle against. But how to show that? How to make the reader feel the shift in the series??? Over the weekend, as I reflected on the last month and the next 11 to come and the revision I wanted in my own life, my good friend Anais reached out to me with the above quote.

Surviving, even conquering, a difficult time or a challenging, work schedule is a thrill. And thrills are part of what we live for. But things have slowed for me enough these days to remind me how good tasting feels, too. Not doing, just savoring. No agenda, just soaking in as much as you can and letting it soothe you. Letting things beyond your immediate focus soak in, embracing them, accepting them as friend not foe. No fight. No flight. Just be…

Of course, that sort of centered introspection would terrify Sarah Temple, as it would many of us who move fast and furious as we chase the next thrill and the next deadline and the next sale and the next reader event, and… Oh. Um… Well, I’ve always said there;s a bit of me in my characters, haven’t I?

Suffice it to say, I’ve found a new level to revise into Sarah Temple’s character AND into my year. A new underlying goal (and conflict, because any change, no matter how positive, brings it’s own challenges). It’s time to survive AND thrive. You know, while Sarah fights against and then with her “Raven” as she battles her band of secret, government dream researchers. And while I write and pitch and promote books and teach and talk with others who do/want to do the same… Hey, I don’t have Sarah Temple’s crazed, psychotic fantasies hounding me, so how insteresting could my life sound in comparison, right? Still there’s a lot to savor there that I’ve let roll past unnoticed the last few years. In ‘10, I’m digging in for the full ride!

FYI–all you who are saying this quote isn’t really for you, because you’re not a writer… Trust me, you’re a story teller. We all are in our own way. You take life in and shine it back out for others to see in a way they couldn’t without you. Your view matters to others. Your view changes, the more you can be in the world around you, instead of always fighting to move to the next place. Stop and taste life twice, as often as you can…

Tags: anna's world, creativity & inspiration, writing articles

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Anna's "Soul of the Matter", Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.