Someone once called me the Queen of Serendipity. I wish. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know, but I’m largely guided by synchronicity or serendipitous moments. If those coincidences which to me mean angles of my life are coinciding to form something miraculous aren’t happening, I take it to mean I’m on the wrong track. This is particularly prevalent for me when it comes to writing.
A plethora of moments banged up against each other in the conception and writing of A Peculiar School. My husband and I had just seen The Man Who Invented Christmas, a marvelous, inspiring movie. Charles Dickens’ characters talked to him. I had never thought of my own characters as talking to me in the same fashion as his did until after the movie. Until that movie, I often found myself as part of the plot, mainly as the main character. And I still do, but after that movie, I heard their voices loud and clear as if they were communicating from some parallel universe, one almost within my reach, but maybe only seconds off from my own.
It was November, and I was nearing the end of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and had only gotten approximately 19,000 words on the historical fiction piece I had started. But as fate or serendipity would have it, my husband and I were walking out in the woods on the Friday following Thanksgiving. These characters came out of nowhere, feeding both my head and my heart with a remarkable story. The two main characters were a peacock, actually a peahen, the female version of the peacock, and a lion. They introduced their selves as Ethel Peacock and Mr. Densworth Lion. We have neither peacocks nor lions in our small little forest. If someone would have asked me if I would ever have written a fantasy about animals, or even a fantasy, for that matter, I would have said, “No.” But never say never.
Upon returning home, I began writing what these animals had to say. Before the weekend was up, I had 19,000 words and kept going from there. More characters entered: a polar bear, an orangutan, a badger, a hyena, a tiger, and a pigeon. Those were the main ones. I had my first rough draft before Christmas. The novel was published by September. In the interim, so many astonishing things occurred.
While visiting family during the Christmas holidays, we entered a Whole Foods in Houston, Texas, to see my cast of characters on display in the entrance. I took that as a good sign.
We were in a Home Goods store near our home when my husband noticed my main two characters together and took a snapshot.
There were many more incidents, but the one that brought tears to my eyes was when my cousin came by our house to bring a gift. He had read Sally, the book I wrote inspired by the life of Sally Ann Barnes, 1858-1969, who was born into slavery. His family had known Sally. He wanted me to have what had been handed down in his family, something that had belonged to Sally. Although the handle of the carnival glass peacock was broken, they had kept it because it was a gift from Sally to his mother. I couldn’t help but feel Sally was telling me I was on the right track with this next book.
I am now 19,000 words into the sequel to A Peculiar School. Funny how the number of 19,000 keeps coming up. In numerology, it translates to a new beginning. Theodore Polar Bear and his mate (I don’t give his mate’s name here because it is a matter of speculation in the book.) have just had twin cubs. My husband brought me home a small stuffed polar bear cub. I could tell it wasn’t brand new. “Where did you get this?” I asked.
“It was on the giveaway table,” he said. The giveaway table is at the end of the hall in the science building of the university where my husband works. Mostly it’s a table where professors place free magazines, periodicals, books, and once in a blue moon, the odd item such as a fluffy little polar bear. In my story, Theodore’s mate gives birth to twins, but since there was only one bear on the table, I’m rethinking the twin thing because if the serendipity god or goddess had wanted my characters to have twins, he or she would have placed two little bear cubs on the table.
Recently a man losing his finance’s engagement ring down a grate at Time’s Square surfaced in the news.
I had previously written this same scene in A Peculiar School. Only in my story, the ring was retrieved by a badger and given to his friend Santiago, a pigeon, to propose to his girlfriend Luce:
A few moments after they left, Billy Badger gasped. “Oh, Santiago will need this. He pulled the chain out from under his fur, the one holding the locket and key. He took it from around his neck and removed a third object—a shiny ring.”
“Is that a diamond?” Ethel asked.
“I do think so,” Filbert Fox said, leaning in for a closer inspection. Billy quickly yanked it back.
“Does this mean?” Ethel asked.
“Yes, it does. I was merely holding it for him so Luce wouldn’t find out. He had a plastic ring that Luce’s friend Gloria helped him pick out, but how could I let him give her that when I had found this in the tunnel? It had dropped through one of the storm drains. Humans are such careless creatures, always discarding perfectly good things.”
Recommended Articles:
Michael Bray – From Fiction to Reality: A Year Spent With a Paranormal Investigation Team
Matthew Keith – Indie Authors: It’s About Enjoying the Ride
LC Champlin – Truth is Stranger Than Fiction: Using History and Real-Life Events in Fiction
