One of the questions I am asked most frequently by readers is "How long did it take you to write Water Signs?" In truth, there are two paradoxically correct answers:
1. Just under four months; and
2. Fourteen years.
I originally conceived the title in 1994, as a reaction to some very traumatic, real-life events involving a handsome guy and a relocation to a state about 1,200 miles away from home. To put it in a nutshell, I'd moved under false pretenses, believing the guy (whom I'd met and dated two years prior), was still a.) single and b.) avidly desirous of having me move to The Sunshine State, although I'd initially balked at the idea. By the time I'd found the courage to make such a bold choice, he'd moved on with a "platonic roommate" who turned out to be his betrothed.
Indescribably humiliated, angry, hurt and demoralized, I nevertheless found the strength to view his purpose in my life as a catalyst for positive change -- one of forcing me to make some painful, yet necessary decisions which I now realize were vital to my personal and spiritual growth. However, back in the excruciatingly painful reality of late-1994/early 1995, such magnanimous, mature thoughts had yet to take root in my mind (although they soon formed the foundation for my emotional survival).
When he surprised me with an in-person visit to break the "happy" news, every fiber of my being wanted to scream, cry, berate and interrogate to get the answers I knew I deserved. Instead, I just sat there, unable to articulate a coherent sentence. That is, until he asked me point-blank how I felt about all of this. And in a performance worthy of an Oscar, I smiled sweetly, expressed my congratulations and assured him that -- since my arrival in South Florida -- my social life had been moving along swimmingly (which was actually true, thanks to some family friends with offspring in my age group, and a determination to create my own social circle). Thus with all the sincerity I could muster, I congratulated him and his bride-to-be, a woman whose acquaintance I was yet to make, but for whom I'd nevertheless felt an obligation.
In my mind, an engagement was a commitment that precluded any interference from past girlfriends. Should he arrive on his own at the conclusion that he and his fiancee were all wrong for each other, and therefore cancel the wedding, that would be one thing. As for me, I was not willing to hurt a woman I'd never even met, simply because he and I couldn't get our timing straight. Stepping aside then, was the only moral thing to do.
Somewhere in the middle of all the trauma, an image of my future book, along with its title, Water Signs, popped into my head. While I am not necessarily adept (yet) at the practice of holding an image firmly in mind, I clearly saw a book with the head-to-tail, in-a-circle, Pisces fish immersed in rippling water -- hardly surprising since the gentleman and I are both March babies, born about two weeks apart under the last sign of the zodiac. I jotted down some notes in a journal. And soon after, I banished the book, the title and the guy in the deepest recesses of my mind, never to be seen or heard from again. At least that was the plan. I continued to journal, as I'd done for most of my life, but for all intents and purposes, the man for whom I'd uprooted my entire life had never even existed.
Fast forward to February, 2008 -- and an odd, amorphous "full-circle" kind of feeling that led me to visit with a local intuitive named Ann, a woman I'd seen about once a year for nearly a decade. During the span of our fifteen-minute conversation, Ann ushered in a flood of unparalleled emotion by uttering one word -- the proper name of the man who'd broken my heart so many years prior. It didn't sink in at first, because I'd always called him by a nickname that's a natural offshoot of his baptismal name, as had everyone else; additionally, this proper name is also shared by my brother-in-law. Coupled with the fact that I was still suffering from selective amnesia where this person was concerned, it took a bit of clarification before I realized that the man Ann declared was "cycling back in" was the same one I'd deliberately and forcefully sealed off in my mind's vault, forever. Or so I thought.
And once the floodgates surrendered to the onslaught, a relentless rush of memories overwhelmed me to the point where the only logical course of action was to prove the age-old axiom, "writing is therapy." Thus, the "fictional" novel Water Signs began to take form in my mind. And once I sat down at the computer, the words sprung from my keyboard and onto my computer screen without much assistance from me, other than as a diligent typist, dutifully keeping pace with their frenzied demand.
Though I had a full-time job and a 40-minute, round-trip commute at the time, I'd rush home and spend a minimum of four hours every weeknight, and pretty much every waking hour of every weekend creating the story of Ken and Madeline. It was as if an angel was sitting on my shoulder, whispering the words into my ear. At no point did I have to consciously think about where to use descriptive narration versus character dialogue; where to end one chapter and begin another; or even how many pages to comprise each chapter. Although I did refer to my journals to fill in details and retrace my heart-wrenching journey through panic and anxiety disorder (a topic for another post), and even pulled out a manuscript I'd written ten years prior to formulate Chapters 21, 22 and 23, the bulk of the novel originated from a mind and a heart that had finally found the courage to tell a story whose time had finally arrived.
I sat down in March of 2008 with the intention to complete the novel by July 4 of 2008. On June 29, 2008 -- my parents' 51st anniversary, Water Signs: A Story of Love and Renewal, had completed its 14-year trajectory from obscure idea with an intriguing title, to a compelling, romantic novel comprised of 435 pages and 35 chapters.
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