The question today: WHY?

 Wrote the following earlier today on Lore's dedicated blog; thought I'd share here, too :)

Tuesday. Stormy weather. Ireland will be the first country to go back into full lockdown as of midnight tomorrow. It’s a day to feel somewhat bludgeoned, I tell you. Maybe a day to get under the covers and read into sleep mode, there being little to look forward to right now. Then, while making coffee, I started thinking, and one thought led to another, until I landed up with the why bother to market my books, such a chore, one leading nowhere (yeah, a ‘down’ day because usually I don’t mind), and that led to the WHY of the Lore series. Why did I write it? Why does it remain important? Why? Just WHY.

Writing is something I’ve always done. Notes, poems, small stories as a child and teenager, children’s stories as a new mother, and then the day arrived that writing became all-consuming. I have told you how I’d sit in the classroom after a home-school session and use the quiet time to write, but what I haven’t told you is what launched the process, the light bulb moment that transformed scribbles into a first full novel.

I started reading long before I went to school and by 8 years old had convinced my dad to let me use his library cards for the adult section of the library (awesome dad said yes!). Stories have been my go-to all my life and I have this OTT imagination as a result. Imagine thus, a woman sitting at her desk with a pile of library books to one side, waiting for her, while she preps lessons for the next day. Done with that, she reaches for that pile and selects the book that is a dictionary of terms for Alchemy, and pages through it … until she comes to an obscure list that is the 14 steps to enlightenment. Her heart thuds and she shivers, for there it is, an entire story unfolding before her as she stares at that list.

Guess what? Within 5 minutes of reading that list, I had hauled pen and paper closer and started jotting notes. Withing a week notes grew into a pile of paper, the beginning of the first manuscript. This does not answer the WHY, but it does answer the ‘what is your light bulb moment?’ The ‘why’ lies in the concept ENLIGHTENMENT. There is more to my WHY than a list in a book (will tell you about that another time) and yet it served as the catalyst. The thing swirling in my spirit found the reason and the means to begin. And thus I did.

Let me tell you, this small explanation has helped to focus my attention and ease the chatterbox in my head. I may still clamber under the covers with a book, though!

Thanks for listening :)