Did you ever hear the old joke about the Christopher Columbus method of typing – I put my fingers down and then discover what I’ve typed? As a writer, I’ve had that kind of experience more than once. And, no, I don’t mean my typing is terrible…although I would never make a great typist, probably not even a good one. What I mean is that often I put something into a story early in the plot and then, after about five or six chapters, I discover why I needed to put it in. It’s my “woo-woo” writing method. When it first happened, it kind of concerned me. Now I look at those moments as little gifts.
I’d always thought the woo-woo moments only extended as far as my thoughts, my ideas, and my stories. This past weekend I was proven wrong.
My husband and I love to get together with two other couples, the Juliens and the Lights. It’s fun because both Ophelia Julien and Donnie Light are writers. It’s also wonderful because all of the spouses of the writers understand how crazy we are and put up with our shop talk. This past weekend we all traveled up to Door County, Wisconsin together. The Juliens and the Reids got up a day early and the Lights arrived about lunch time on Saturday.
Both Ophelia and Donnie have written stories for the launch of my upcoming Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mysteries Kindle World. We were all excited for the upcoming launch, which will happen tomorrow by the way. And, because I’d been advised not to read the fanfiction author stories, I was in the dark about what they’d each written.
As we sat around the lunch table on the shores of Door County, Donnie started to relate a story. His Mary World short story was actually from a dream he had and from the very beginning of the first draft he’d called it Twisted Trails. He said it wasn’t until it was going to be uploaded that his wife told him that I already had a story called Twisted Paths and he ought to change the name. He was astounded that his title and mine were so close, but he stated, he was glad to find out before he uploaded the story. We all laughed about it and teased him about plagiarizing. He took the teasing in good humor.
Then he said, “Since I’ve already uploaded the story, I can tell you it’s about twin girls. One dies and the other one takes her place.”
I looked down the table at him. “Um, Donnie, I have a story just like that.”
He grinned back at me. “Right. Sure you do.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I have a story just like that.”
He looked over at his wife. “You called her, right?” he asked. “This is a joke.”
She shook her head and then Ophelia chimed in. “No, I’ve read it.”
He looked shocked and then filled me in with some of the other details in his story. The stories were very similar to mine in a lot of areas, and, although I know his story is going to be different from mine, it certainly was a woo-woo moment.
When we got back to the cabin, I went on to Amazon and looked up my book “Twisted Paths.” A shiver went down my spine when I saw that the title he was going to emulate was the title of the book I wrote about the twin girls. How crazy is that?
Have you ever had any woo-woo moments of your own?