Storyteller

The storyteller embellishes.

It’s like being a sculptor. You break open the rock, but don’t leave it all jagged. Polish and hone.

In a memoir or a true short story, that’s called creative detail.

So some part of the blogging is always fiction. These stories I write really do happen, but I’m a writer, what can I say.

The novels are another story.

The life path stamp

Becoming a writer is a long journey. What inspires me to continue is that I cannot stop. If we arrived in this life with a life path stamped across the forehead, ‘writer’ was on mine.  If I die before the stories are written, I will be really ticked.  Really.

Actually, I started to write when my daughter was about three.  That is when the arse began to flatten and the boxes of manuscripts were stacking in the closet.  Before that, my ideal activity was writing a term paper. Though I wanted to write fiction when I was in elementary, and I did, but I was not ready.

I had not suffered enough.

My daughter, not that she caused suffering, has been a teacher, an inspiration, the hum in my day from her energy and drama and life. She slept in a pile of blankets behind my chair when I worked all night. Edited my manuscripts and articles when she grew up.

The first contemporary romance novel

Forevermore was birthed… and went back in the closet… way back then. There were pages she was not allowed to read then. Now she reads it all and groans.

Forevermore will be out of the closet soon.  Soon after, the rest of the Great Lakes Romance Trilogy.

'Does she ever quit with the camera?' 'No. Just keep eating...'

Oh, yes, my life. Once we were wildlife rehabbers… i.e. those who prepare wildlife to return to the wild. Too difficult for our family. So we started adopting domestic skunks from rescues. These went well with our Newfoundland dog adoptions, those too from rescues. You had to be there.

Read skunk stories here. Empty-nesting with exotics, an ancient cat and Newfoundlands.

My skunk memoirs, Skunk Medicine: There’s A Skunk in the House! and Other Tail-raising Stories are like being there.

And I published the book. Loved the work, loved it.

See those sweet faces, they all make my heart sing. The one looking at you, he slept on my heart when I was ill, and I believe the singing of my heart was what cured me that time.

Publishing and writing continues

Publishing has been a delight for me, more of what I always wanted to do with my life. With a background in journalism, feature writing, editing, graphic design, web design, photography, besides publishing a small town newspaper and a historical journal, and selling the advertising, well, I’ve been in my element for thirty years now.

They say to do what you love, know your passion, write what you know, suffer enough. I’m trying to go light on the suffering these days, more on the passion and focus.

Essays pop open in my mind when I sleep. Chapters write themselves in my dreams. I cannot wait to get into my office each day. For this, for the ability, for the fact that I even have the time to do so – I know I am blessed.

The real baby

A Breath Floats By: An Illusion for the Soul and the rest of the Great Lakes Spiritual Trilogy were written after my mother passed over. After we moved from Black Log Valley in Pennsylvania to the Midwest. A Breath Floats By was the agony of birth itself, as any writer knows. Coupling the writing and revisions with design and publishing, never made me consider that I may not want to go through that again. Just kept planning.

The timelss oil painting.

The alternatives

Sometimes I think I lose focus from writing women’s fiction because I specialize in life purpose charting – a directive of sorts that gives information so choices are made with more of the information one has when we are born, such as the number vibration, flower essence soul type, and ascendant.  Though I am also a holistic guide and trained in Bowen therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and am self-taught in homeopathy, my focus is on the writing and charts for individuals which perfectly lends to me the creativity and reaching out from my life to others.  I love it!

The chosen path – again?

And for my connection to the Earth and to others, I am blessed to be allowed to write about it all too.  ‘Welcome back the storyteller.’ That’s what my dear friend wrote for my book jacket, Skunk Medicine.

‘Welcome back….’ Wonder what she meant. . . .

Essa Adams