The Epiphony

So, I was having lightning strike my brain sometime this morning whilst on the toilet. This seems to happen quite a lot, thoughts happening to me while I’m in the bathroom. I know, you can probably understand having good ideas in the shower, after all, some people sing in the shower, others talk to themselves. But, there is nothing funnier that washing your face, lathering up all the soap and all that good jazz and then all of a sudden SPLASH! The water strikes your face and a brilliant idea is born! My genius, however, seems only to work while I was take my morning dump.

As I said before, this seems to happen quite often. It’s like my brain starts spinning as soon as the pressure is on. So, while most people are playing bored games, reading the morning news on their phones, or just plain thinking, “why won’t this darn thing just vacate the premises” (but with certainly more colorful internal monologue) my crazy messed up mind was busy thinking, “how the heck to I write chapter 10 or Pocketful of Pain if I didn’t end in a cliffhanger.” This instant, of course, was when lightning struck my brain. And yes, it hurt.

This stroke of clever thinking was actually a culmination of a number of things, but the main bulk of it came from an internal monologue I was having on my Friday drive down to Provo where I was going to look for a book store location for my usual ego (who is decidedly not Scottish), Erika Bates. You’ll find that I do this a lot, have internal monologues. My husband says that this is most of the reason why I’m a good writer. See, while he’s busy thinking, ‘Oh that’s a pretty house,’ or ‘I hate the quality of this road,’ my mind is busy thinking, ‘Isn’t it odd that that beautiful house is right next to that old Mexican Fish Restaurant. I’d never want to live there because my days would be like: “She walked upstairs, dropping her book bag at the foot of her rusted out bed frame. The floorboards groaned in complaint as she plopped down on the ancient mattress. It had been another long school day, exceptionally long, the kind of long where one doesn’t want to come home to the smell of overcooked, over-spiced fish from the Mexican restaurant next door. In fact, what she really wanted was just a little piece, a little quiet, and distinctly not-the-smell-of-fish. Yes, that’s what she wanted.” And so on.’ I really could go on like that for some time and often do, but I won’t bore you, seeing as how you’re probably wondering - at this point - what all of this has to do with having an apostr-epiphony whilst sitting upon the crapper. Don’t worry, I’m getting to it.

ANYWHO! I was having one of these internal monologues whilst driving to Provo from our little crummy apartment in Orem on the first of February when a sudden feeling overwhelmed me. The day felt surprisingly new. My monologue went a little something like this: “Today feels strangely new. Like the kind of new one feels on the first day of spring, or the first day of school, or the first time you go on a road trip by yourself, or the first time you kiss a boy, or like on the day before your wedding.” Again, I could go on for some time and it really did, but that’s the basis of it.

It was this internal monologue that came to mind this morning during my little toilet episode. And, just as that last little bit of inconvenience was being wiped from my embarrassingly large, white behind, this monologue went a little something like this: “It all feels new, like the first day of spring, like the day before your wedding, or the day I was sent off on a train to Paris to train with the…………..

“Wait a minute… I’ve never been on a train to Paris… That wasn’t my monologue. WHAT THE HECK IS ADRIANNA DOING IN MY HEAD??!”

It was then that the largest, and perhaps the most frustrating thing for most of my readers (not to name names but, Drea Hatch), struck me like that brilliant bolt of lightning.

It took me till this evening when I was in the car with my husband giving him a lecture not unlike this rant I’m currently on, side comments and everything. Actually, it was probably more irritating for him to listen to than it is for you to read simply based on the fact that when my monologue is spoken aloud it is often auto-corrected with incorrect dates, improper words and, more often than not, nonexistent words I made up just for the heck of it. Given this, one must infer that my husband is one of the most patient men in the world and that he will probably be better suited to teaching my little boy about patience than I will ever be… seeing as how the majority of the time when I’m rambling like a mad woman making up nonsense words and auto-correcting my incorrect dates like some sort of emotionally troubled computer program, I prefer not to be interrupted. This little fact, me not liking to be interrupted, is all the more infuriating when one realizes just how ADD my husband is and just how often he interrupts me to point out the most unusual things that usually get me going on an entirely different rant. It’s usually several minutes later (hours to a man with ADD) that I realize I’m off topic and must come back to the original rant at which time my husband has completely forgotten exactly what it is I was talking about in the first place. Do you see my predicament?

I was on one of these rants this afternoon, going off on exactly everything I’ve just elaborated on in a great deal more detail and with a worse vocabulary when the thought occurred to me again, this time in the form of a well-placed insight from my husband. The thought was this: “Well, if you ended the chapter like it was final, why don’t you just start the next chapter like it’s the next book?”

And so! I am left with one singularly logical thing. The Pocketful of Pain series will be published in 6 novelas, reading much like a mini-series plays out on TV. So, as soon as I finish editing the last 9 chapters of Pocketful of Pain, it will be available for print and purchase.

Enjoy!