Hellooo Ruthy

What is this blog about? Me? Writing? Yes.

Today, both.

I told my husband recently…I’m going to write another book. I’ve written two. With them I have rewritten, revised, and reworked and queried, queried and queried again. I’ve listened to people tell me that my books are phenomenal, that my books will become movies, that they will be blockbusters which will make me famous. I’ve listened and taken in the compliments until the smoke up my ass has blinded me. So I’m going for number three. This time, the process is very different and I’m wondering if that will make a difference to how well it is received by the folks with power, not just the smoke blowers.

Before I wrote one word of this next book I knew the beginning, middle and end. In my head I built the arc, knew every scene, knew the driving force, the stake and how it will end. I wrote a synopsis and a query before I wrote chapter one. It was done before I began. All I have to do now is tell it to my fingers.

As I proceed I feel as if I am reading a favorite book for the second time all the while knowing exactly what is going to happen next and yet surprised and pleased by what I am reading. It’s strange writing this way; exciting and yet very, very strange. This third book, is timely, has depth, is funny and ends on a note that will give every heart an extra beat. It’s the kind of story I long to read.

On my way home from food shopping a while back I passed one of those old motels along Boston Post Road. You know the kind of place, groups of little cabins or cottages, scattered along an old main road overtaken by an interstate. Here, it’s Route 1 which runs from Florida to Maine. Because of the highways whole towns have been bypassed and many of the ‘motor-hotels’ have been torn down, yet some have remained as rundown sad answers to a families 1950’s dream of success. I wondered that day as I passed by, who lives there, who hides there? By the time I traveled one more mile I knew exactly who was moving in, why she was hiding, how she was going to survive and the difference she was going to make. When I walked through my kitchen door, arms full of groceries I knew the background of the owner and that of every person who rented one of the little cottages. 

A likeable, alone and broke Ruth Madoff at the bottom of a barrel, climbs up, out and over the rim.

Because I’ve already written two books, 75,000 words and another at 82,000 words, I realize the task at hand and when it’s done and revised and rewritten I’m wondering what I’ll do if my effort has the same outcome as the other two.  I guess the important thing is to just write it, get it done, rewrite, polish, have it read and believe. That’s the important word I guess, ‘believe’. Because when number three is done, I’m done. I doubt I will try again.

I won’t give up writing, it is in my DNA. Hopefully when it’s finished I will still be writing my column and blogging. I still will be posting my daily quotes on Facebook and still be making people think and smile and tell me, I like the shit you write.

But this book, this number three, gee God you handed it to me on a sunny summer afternoon and told me the story during a ten minute ride. Why would God do that if the story were not to be told?