On Writing: Grasp the inspiration

I found time for writing this weekend since I really really needed it. Not that I managed to write as much as I’d love to, but it was enough to start that fire again. To feel the beauty of the world that awaits me, to reconnect with the characters that are too anxious to tell their story, but mostly I managed to think about the story again.

It’s very important for me to have the story in my mind, but when I say story, I don’t mean I have to have all the answers. Hell no. It’s just enough to have in mind the next chapter or the beginning of a chapter, even the ending will do. I’ll be content even if I only have the slightest idea of where the story is heading. That is enough to make me write and while I write everything can change. But first I’ll have to start somewhere.

If you stuck at some point, it’s not necessarily a writer’s block. Maybe you need something to boost you up and that can be a great book, or a walk. When that happens to me I realize that I lack of inspiration, but hey, if we look closer around us, anything can inspire us. Especially now that the holidays are coming and the Christmas lights are blinking, Christmas songs sound practically out of nowhere and air smells of chocolate!

Search for your inspiration and get some work done. Don’t you love that fire burning inside you when you’re writing your story? Oh, best feeling ever!

So, I want to share that happiness with you, and that’s why I’m going to paste here a part of Chapter 1 from the current project I’m writing, Face Cards. (If you click the link, you can read the prologue.) 

I hope you’ll enjoy that first rough draft. 

Chapter 1

It started with a murder. Always starts with a murder, and my story was not any different. Countless nights I stayed up, gazing at the dark sky and wishing my life to be different, but the truth was that I liked my life. Or at least it was the only way I knew how to live. Would I change it? If I was given the chance to start clean and be a different woman, would I take it?

The bed was soft and feathery, too soft and comfy to my liking. I cursed the bold skinny man with the weird goatee who sold it to me. But I wanted to look normal the day I went shopping for my new home. Who in their right mind would ask for a bed as hard as stone? People would surely looking at me suspiciously and I wasn’t in the mood for those familiar judging stares. Why do people think so highly of themselves? Can’t they see how foolish this is?

Getting up I headed toward the window. My feet were cold against the wooden floor and I chilled as I opened the window. My oversized blouse was not fitting for outdoor activities, but I didn’t really care.  I climbed up the roof, a habit that had stuck since I was a foster kid. Too many shit happen in those foster families, but I found the perfect hiding place to steal some moments of peace. No one ever looked for me up there. It was only me, my thoughts and the stars.

Honestly, I had no reason to keep doing this since I owned a pretty little house, and even a garden, all to myself. What’s the point on spending money to decorate it and made it humanly acceptable, if I kept avoiding it? Damn, I even bought one of those old style dressers with an oval mirror and those small drawers to place the jewelry, not that I owned many or used the damn think. But I always wanted one. 

Despite my efforts though, the house was cold, empty, and the pictures hang lonely on the walls. There was this silence that felt so heavy in my heart. But it wasn’t the house nor that coffin-like feeling I got when I was inside. It was just the thoughts I could no longer avoid once I was left alone.

But climbing up the roof and hearing the bustle of the street, the neighbor yelling to his wife – beating her twice a week – listening to the babyish irritating songs from the newly mother down the street, and even Pumpkin’s barking –the old lady’s Chihuahua and so fugly and stupid– was better than dealing with my thoughts.

I steadied my feet on the gutter and laid back. The cold surface of the roof tiles felt just about right. Maybe I should return the bed, or I can just sleep on the floor. No one is telling me what to do anymore. I gazed up, but the sky was different. The moon was hidden behind grey clouds and the stars unseen through the heavy fog.

The sky I loved was bright, clear and the air smelled of baked chocolate cookies and croissants. But then voices rose so high, screams and cries and all I could smell was burning wood, cookies and blood. That iron smell it reminds me of home.

Lightning stroke and heavy raindrops fell on my body. A soft breeze rose and my nostrils flared from the smells of wet ground. I sat up, but didn’t hurry my way inside. I wanted to see the world in its true colors. Those rainy nights where the dust settled down and the voices died, were the scariest one.

But I was fond of scary things.

I carefully climbed down and made my way back to my bedroom, dripping on the wooden floor. Not a good idea but who could stop me? The house was dark and silent, as it always was, and through my bedroom door, the hallway seemed even darker. A thud sounded from the ground floor and I held my breath. 

The hair on the back of my neck rose as the feeling of a presence, settled in me. I got this a lot when I was alone. So practically I got this strange feeling every freaking time I was in that house. A chill ran down my spine and I kicked my door closed. I knew there weren’t ghosts in the house, but there were ghosts in my memories and I was living a haunted life.