Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Moving On My Mind by Shaleen Kapil

I’ve got a confession: I’m supposed to be writing. I’m not. I’ve got moving on the brain.

In May, I am leaving Texas for Florida. My husband already left in February, and I’ve been staying with the kids until school ends. That means that I, essentially, am a single parent and staging and selling a house on my own. On top of that, it seems like my house decided to burst apart since my husband left including a squirrel getting into the attic and a water shut-off valve failing just before I was supposed to go visit my husband in Florida.  So, needless to say, I’ve been just a little stressed.

Despite all of this, I have found time to paint, which has been very meditative for me. But I haven’t been writing (or at least not as much as I should be), and I realized it was because my characters need space in my mind. When it is cluttered with all of this other stuff, my characters don’t have space to live and play and breathe.

I think one of the most common questions asked of authors is where do your stories come from? Mine come from space and time. The truth is that I need a little bit of boredom, of sitting and doing nothing. My favorite is that time after I wake up and before I jump up to the start of the day. That is when my characters tell me about themselves, who they want to be and what their goals are.

Very soon, I hope to reclaim that space for my writing, but until then, I guess I can console myself with a lot of practice painting.

Shaleen Kapil was not born in Texas, but she has spent most of her life there. Find out more at www.shaleenkapil.com or Like her on Facebook.

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6 comments:

  1. It's amazing how quickly our brain space can be taken up by the tiny details. I also enjoy the meditative state of painting a wall, not for creating stories, but just to enjoy not writing.

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  2. There will be so much to do in Florida.I love going to the beach. I had a squirrel in my attic. I had to get someone professionally to get him out of my attic. A friend had a lot of damage done by one.

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  3. Shaleen, hope you will soon be your husband. That happened in my family. When I was in high school my dad got a job in the state government so he went to Tallahassee in January when the governor was sworn in and my mom & stay behind in Miami until I finished school. My mom was also finishing up her degree in teaching. Our house had already been sold so we basically rented rooms in two different places. Not fun and not easy on my mom.

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  4. Moving. Ugh! I've moved so many times that when I bought my current home, I told my kids that I won't be leaving unless it's feet-first. Good luck, Shaleen. Try to think of it as an adventure.

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  5. I hope you move goes well and you settle in Florida quickly. I'm sure you will feel better once you are there. I too do a lot of my thinking when I first wake up. I keep a pad by my bed and make notes so I can come back to them later when my chores are out of the way. And sometimes that takes most of the day!

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  6. Thanks for the well wishes. I think we'll like Tallahassee, but I'm ready to be settled.

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