Open post

Writing that Healed

In a recent class with my students taking The Writer in You course, we had a session about the metaphorical drawer. During that class, I referred to many of the projects that I have in the drawer, and I discussed the various reasons why a manuscript might be put in there.

During that discussion, I hinted at one project I have totally lost the desire to pull out and finish. I didn't go into any details about why I have no desire to finish that project, and I didn't go into any details about the project itself, because those details were irrelevant for the class.

But a few days later, my subconscious brain decided that I needed to "dream" about that story. Not the reasons behind the story, but the story itself—the writing, the journey, and the growth.

I still don't have any desire to finish the story, but to deny that the story exists would be to deny a portion of my journey and the growth that I had within my writing skills.

So, I've decided that I need to share snippets of that writing with the world. From a writing and editing perspective, those pieces are gold.

If I am honest with myself, they are really good. Sure, that writing came from a time in my life when I was living in fear of a particular person, consciously aware that I had inadvertently given this person the power to destroy my writing career before it had even begun. It took a long time to regain my power, cutting that person out of my life. But I refuse to let a voice that has no consequence or power over me anymore make me silent going forward.

In today's post, I'm going to give you a little insight into a really bad time in my life. And I'm going to share with you what was meant to be the opening scene from a thriller novel that I had started but will never finish.

Read More

Open post
Promotional banner for "Dancing in the Purple Rain" by Judy L. Mohr. The background shows a dark, rainy, neon-lit futuristic city with lightning in the sky and two large holographic Queen of Hearts figures on opposite sides. In the foreground on the right is the book cover, featuring a person in a purple hooded coat standing in the rain. Bold yellow text across the center reads: “JOIN THE RAIN DANCE…” Above it, smaller text says: “BEING SPECIAL CAN MAKE YOU A TARGET.”

It Took a Pandemic to Unlock to Story (Excerpt from ‘Dancing in the Purple Rain’ included)

It was a novel that took me many years to just get out of my head. And it wasn’t because of the inability to write, but rather I struggled to piece together the lie.

The opening scene (which you can read on my blog) was written back in 2017 (something like that). And I had a rough idea as to what I wanted the story to be. But I was stuck on the lie that my main character was being told.

Until the pandemic hit in 2020. Suddenly, the last piece of the puzzle I needed fell into place.

Read More

Posts navigation

1 2 3 4
Scroll to top