Each blog spot, each story I write I try to better myself, but this was highly unusual. I sometimes worry over a piece like a dog with a bone. The stories about Tommy Two Shoes wrote themselves.

 

Pandora’s Box

            I have never been so consumed by anything in my life. It saddens me to say that not my wife, not my children, and not my profession have approached the intensity of this feeling. Nothing has ever drawn me as much as this burning desire. The passion was inside me and once I lifted the lid on Pandora’s Box, I couldn’t control it. It poured from me in torrents.

I don’t know what else to say. It was a wild and enjoyable ride. But now I am spent.

Have you ever been unable to sleep, kept awake by one thought after another, words tumbling out in torrents, or clusters of ideas stringing together to make a necklace of a plot. That is what happened to me.

I'm attending meetings of the Ligonier Valley Writers Group, to learn to write on a higher level than I have been doing in the past. They presented an idea for publication, using a fictitious detective by the name of Manelli. He is to help other detective characters, amateur or professional, to solve mysteries. The voluntary assignment was to take on a case as a detective on vacation and solve the mystery. Each investigator has the help of Manelli and a muse (a mythical or fabled person) to offer suggestions or clues.

When they passed out the flier, I had no desire to participate in the project. I came home and put the flier on my desk. I glanced at it. It sparked. I thought I would write a comedy, a spoof, a lampoon instead of a “real” detective mystery.

 That is why I chose the name of Tommy Two Shoes as the investigator’s name and the cartoon character, Charlie Brown as my muse. I thought I could have a lot of fun with those names. But then a strange thing happened. One item after another popped into my head; characters, clues, location, and the most important part, the plot.

Right then I had a nugget of a thought, not much, but I wrote it down. (I found that if I do not scrawl the basic idea on paper, I lose it. I decided to turn in. I carried the tablet and pen and placed it on the floor beside my bed. (I do that often.)

I couldn’t sleep. Bits and pieces, words, and sentences would ooze out and I would have to grab the paper and write them down. Clues and ideas kept appearing.

In the morning, I could see the story from the beginning to the end. I had to connect everything with conversations and details, but the story was written and I typed it quickly. Tommy Two Shoes wasn’t finished with me yet. He had another story and mystery to solve. It appeared more slowly, but it spilled out as well.

I don’t know if any other aspiring authors have had an experience like this, but it was such a rush, such a “sugar” high, I emailed the rough draft to the group instead of waiting until I had honed and reworked it.