Like kayaking the rapids

Ok--I've never kayaked in my life. I have done lots of canoeing and whitewater rafting, when my boys were in Scouts and we were camping and going on adventure trips all over #Florida and #Canada. I Loved it. But never in a kayak. The point of the title above is this: writing, once you start, is like a downhill river. It's starts to take on a life of it's own. It's inexorable, exciting, irresistible, and it's going to happen. if you're in a rushing rapid, you had for sure better paddle, right? Writing, if you enjoy it, is a similar endeavor. You have a hard time denying it, because it's happening first in your head, and has to come out. It's damned close to being an addiction. While I was in #India this past summer, I got a lot of writing done on The Flyboys, my first novel. I was done with the first draft by the time we landed back in #Miami on August 7th, and I set to work on the second draft right away. Once I was done with that, I sent it off with a salute to my agent. Here's the crazy thing: while I was on the last few chapters of the second draft, finding errors and improving sentences, the storyline for my next novel was already forming in my head. The characters, storyline, and setting were all swirling slowly, the way a low pressure system begins to gradually form into a tropical cyclone (something we Floridians are quite familiar with). By the time I hit "send" and sent Flyboys on its way, Dear Chief, my next novel was ready to come pouring out of my head and onto my keyboard, like a football team charging out of the tunnel, ready for kickoff. Or, like a category 5 storm.

The act of writing turns on a bunch of lights in one's brain that would otherwise stay off. It activates those creative synapses and seems to have an endless supply of energy. When I'm writing, I'm also more apt to write better emails, reviews of restaurants and books, and hopefully, blog entries. Writing begets writing. I suppose it doesn't hurt to already have an endless supply of material as well. I am blessed to have had twenty-seven years of police work to draw on. As I write this blog on a quiet Labor Day morning, I'm thirty-seven pages into Dear Chief. Characters, plot twists, and pivotal events play out in my head, in the shower, walking the dog, and lying in bed after just waking up. #Writing happens above the neck first, then courses its way downward, to the fingertips, like a rushing river. Writing is something that is hard for me to stop. Especially since I don't want to.