Writing Addiction

My husband chides me, “Why are you always writing?”

I confess. I’m addicted to writing. It’s the same with reading. When I’m not writing, I’m reading. But, there’s never enough time to do all the writing and reading I want to do. I mean NEVER!

When I get to heaven, I want to be assigned to the journaling department with spirits of like ilk. What joy!!! Then on my days off, I can just sit on a cloud and write or read. Yep, one day you may look up and see a pair of feet dangling from a fluffy cloud and you can say with a lot of certainty, “That’s Angela!”

As soon as my teachers put a pencil in my hand, I wanted to write all the stories that were in my head. Most of those stories germinated from my Papa LeMaire who was a great storyteller. The more proficient I got, I wrote about everything. Nothing missed my observant eyes or emotional wrangling, and it all went down on paper.

When I got married, I left a few things in the closet in my bedroom. At nineteen you think you will have a residence with your parents forever. I could have never imagined my mother cleaning my room and throwing away the three boxes of potential manuscript material that I’d been working on. Well, in my mind it was manuscript, awarding material, and I was devastated. My mother said, “Good riddance!” Sometimes parents don’t realize how important your “stuff” can be!

My grandmother once asked me, “What kind of people do you write about?”

That was a hard question. I observe everyone – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes, I add in all these traits to come up with some very unusual characters. I like to write about real people caught up in the act of living life small and large. People who struggle and find joy are amazing subjects. I want to crawl into the mind of the homeless, the psychotic, and the little old lady across the street and set them up as neighbors trying to get along. Oh, I forgot. I already did that one.

I think the whole idea of taking what you know and twisting it a quarter of a turn is exciting. You never know what’s going to come out of a situation of fate, promise, and determination. That’s writing for you!

So, for the next couple of blog posts, I’m going to write about what I’m writing about. I’m ninety percent finished with the sequel to Cries of Innocence. I’m so excited! It’s a new genre for me - Contemporary Christian Romance. Afterwards, I will head right into finishing up the Cries trilogy with Cries of Mercy.

I can’t wait to share with you what’s happening in my happy place – the writing happy place. In everything I write and do, I remain consistent in my desire to share Jesus and His love with everyone. Writing Bible studies or fictional novels, I want every word I pen to bring my King the honor and glory.

Blessings!