Sunday 1 May 2016

So Many Secrets - Recycling an Old Favorite o' Mine

I recycle everything; boxboard, magazines, tin cans (hey - I can craft the *cutest* gifts out of an empty tin can with a pull-tab top...but that's a story for another day, friends) and paper. I am mad for recycling paper. So much so that I have a stack of old, printed manuscripts (which I never really bothered to try to query or peddle in any way) in my counseling room. Now, I'm a scribbler when I am in session; I don't necessarily write down anything my client is saying, but it helps me to listen if I can keep my pen moving on the page.

The blank backs of the old sheets of manuscript are perfect for that, and here's the thing: for the last several years I haven't thought of these stacks of paper as anything other than that: scrap paper.

But then I flipped a sheet over the other day and started reading it. And then the next page. And the page after that. And, and, and....

It was kinda good.

So I started thinking 'What if...?' (and I'm here to tell you: when a writer starts thinking 'What if...?', gears start squeaking, steam starts rolling, and the little conveyer belts that live in their heads start churning out thought after thought after thought.) And so....

My old novel, So Many Secrets is paranormal romantic mystery which reads very raw right now (hey, it was written 10 years ago, in '05. I've evolved a little since then) but has excellent bones and what's more? Reading the old draft hit me right in the nucleus accumbens - that is to say the pleasure-centre of my brain - and suddenly I was right back there, crafting this story and experiencing the sheer, heady joy I felt when I wrote it.

I just had to return to the world I'd created within the walls of So Many Secrets. I wanted to renew my acquaintance with the many characters who live in that story. Be amid the setting (orchard bloom time in the fruit-n-vineyard country of the Okanagan Valley in Canada's beautiful British Columbia), and what's more, I wanted to impart what I've learned in ten+ years as a writer onto this plot and its people. And as a result....?

I've started a companion blog to this one - the link is on this page - and I am hanging So Many Secrets up in weekly chapter installments for anyone who thinks that perhaps the following circumstance is one they might like to be pulled into:

As a retro-cognitive, Natasha can see the past - but she keeps her ability to herself. As a cop, Owen has a dirty history - but he keeps his mistakes deeply buried. Distrust sizzles, for each senses all the other has hidden - but when vengeance reaches out of the past to threaten their mutual friend, Natasha and Owen are forced to set suspicions aside, combine all they are capable of, and uncover So Many Secrets

Here's the link if you so choose to read. Enjoy! And, as always, Peace All

http://somanysecretsbrw.blogspot.ca/

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