It’s almost as if characters are TRYING to move to Bellingwood. I am nearly a third of the way through Book 23 and two new characters showed up last night. I planned for one of them, and then the second showed up and Polly couldn’t help herself. “Come to Bellingwood,” she said. “We’ll take care of you,” she said.
Excuse me, Polly. Where are we going to put another person? Sigh. You know she’ll figure it out.
But the good news is that I’m going to pass the one-third mark tonight – I’m right on schedule. So far, no bodies, but it’s loads of fun. Okay, and some not-so-fun stuff, but you know … they always get through it. Never fear.
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I’ve started doing a thing. This plan has been in place since January, but assembling the parts and pieces, building up my courage, learning new stuff, procrastination because of my lizard brain, kept me back until now. I finally beat the fear of judgment / lizard brain into submission, got the right equipment into place, learned software, ran out of things that help me procrastinate and hunkered in.
Audio recordings of my vignettes are landing on my YouTube channel. I’ve recorded the first four, all written while I was in the middle of Book 9 – Pages of the Past. Next week, I will upload the five I wrote for Book 10 – The River Runs Through It.
For those of you who are new to Bellingwood, I write these vignettes from the perspective of characters other than Polly Giller, giving insight into the community and its residents. They’re just snippets of conversations and interactions around town and rarely give away any spoilers. Unless, of course, you are still in the earliest books. You might discover things about people and characters you haven’t met yet.
The vignettes are published each month in the newsletter and as a blog post on my website, then compiled into an ebook if you want to access them that way. By signing up for the newsletter, you will always have free access to them. Now, as I post them on YouTube, you will also be able to listen to them at no charge.
I love to tell a story. I love to read out loud. Part of what I’m doing with these vignettes is a rehearsal, as well as managing my learning curve for recording the books and getting them to Audible. I’ve only just begun and I’m looking forward to the experience.
Here is a link to my channel on YouTube, where you will find the first four vignettes.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQKZ6M75BHA6W-DxcJb3vMQ
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It’s back to the writing mines tonight for me. I have a bad feeling about this chapter. A very bad feeling.
Polly might have jinxed things the other night: The sky was blue, puffy white clouds hung in place. It was a nice evening to be out. Polly rolled down her window and took a deep breath, contented that her world was in place.
She knows what she did, and now she won’t let Henry leave the main highway or look into empty parking lots. Not for any reason. They made it to their destination, and I’m confident they’ll make it home … but then …
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Thank you so much for being part of Bellingwood. I am grateful for you all.
