Back in the Here and Now

I have been lost in my novel for many, many months, neglecting family, friends, life in general, and especially this blog to spend my time with fantasy people in their world. Real time and place were almost dreams to me, and the people I know and care for were characters in those dreams. My life was in the words that poured out creating the story of love, struggle, perseverance, and hope that filled the pages of my manuscript while I secluded myself, allowing no distractions to entice me from my work.

Now, after the story is done, mundane words replaced with vivid words full of emotion, plot refined and honed to epitomize the theme, characters and setting grown familiar yet unknown, I step out of that world back into the real one that competes with my imagination. I left my desk this afternoon to drive through golden ginkgoes, maples of red, orange and yellow, multicolored trees wearing their autumn dresses. Glad to be alive here and now, I entered the recording booth of the radio station at the library to read a Christmas short story by Charles Dickens.

Everyone knows the Dickens story of A Christmas Carol with Scrooge and the ghosts, but his other Christmas stories were a revelation to me. Today I read What Christmas Is As We Grow Older, a very short one that took only fourteen minutes to read. I had read the story before and didn’t think much of it when I read it silently. It seemed to be merely a collection of the author’s memories. But when I read it aloud into the microphone, it came to life. I had never thought I’d like to read aloud the convoluted, multi-clause sentences of Charles Dickens, but I did. The music of the language and the richness of the words made those memories of Dickens come alive for me.

I can only hope my writing may some day enthrall a reader as much as I was captivated by the world and the writing of Charles Dickens. That would be more than full payment for the months and years I’ve spent closeted with my research, my creative muse, and my computer. Not that I regret any minute of the process. Nothing is more satisfying to me than creating another world peopled with characters who are part of me and everybody I know, people who meet the challenges of their world with hope.