Thanks for dropping by, Dionna. Hope your writing is going well!

If the average person has 10,000 thoughts a day, I must have 50,000, none of them worth a flit! That’s why I can’t meditate, even on the simplest level. But you’re right–thoughts of the book that keeps coming back shouldn’t be ignored or put off. I think I don’t want it to be the next book because I foresee problems and–shall we say it?–lack of interest with publishers. Which means I’m cutting my idea off at the knees before I let it run. You’re right.
Again.

You are so wise, Melissa, even though you think the Guns N Roses era is old (just kidding! To me Guns N Roses era is a blip on the screen!). I do believe that having children shows us childhood from a truer perspective. They do live from feeling to feeling, emotion to emotion, and don’t become mired in facts until later.

Since I never had children, I’ve had to rely on my own memories which are becoming harder to access. This wasn’t much of a problem until I hit 60, or 60 hit me, not sure which. You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thanks so much!

Ideas are a funny thing. Some float around happily, content to just be an idea, some deteriorate and hold on only as delicate fragments of lace. Then there are the ideas that are like drummer beaters, keeping us awake at night.

I am thinking about your research and the disruption to your idea. Since becoming a mum I am relearning some things about childhood. Even though childhood is about learning and absorbing knowledge [from an adult perspective], but to a child it isn’t about that, it’s about feeling. A child’s understanding of the world they live in doesn’t lie in adult facts. Sometimes it is a distortion of those facts. So there might still be a chance for that story to work.

And yes, sad to say, our era is history! I think even the 80s are considered historical! How old does that make *us* feel?

But to your larger point, I do believe some stories are timeless. We nudge them aside, distracted as we sometimes are by shiny objects and ramshackle buildings—metaphors, perhaps, for our innermost thoughts and yearnings. But the story (our Story) waits patiently in the wings, just beyond our camera’s range. And we know, deep down in our hearts, that we’ll encounter it again and again, until we’re willing to sit with it and write.

Least wise, that’s been my experience. 🙂