IWSG: Have you ever . . . ?

September's question from the Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) is: Have you ever surprised yourself with your writing? For example, by trying a new genre you didn't think you'd be comfortable in?

'Tis true. I've always written something, and I've often been surprised by what I write. Poetry. Short stories. Flash fiction. Not until I retired did I begin writing those longer stories that turned into books. But I still like to play with genre fiction, science fiction, thrillers, even as I commit to writing historical fiction, a process that typically takes me 3 years to finish one novel.

So now, when I'm very close to finishing the last (and third novel) of a family saga, I'm feeling a bit itchy. So many directions are possible . . . and yet, how will I know which is the 'right' one for me?

Don't you admire those writers who find their niche and simply tell wonderful stories that lead from one to the next, seemingly so seamlessly?

That's not me. Just as much as I love traveling and living in other countries whenever possible, I enjoy playing with words and contexts that don't really seem to have much to do with each other. Well, except for the previously mentioned three-novel family saga set in Scotland, Australia, and Canada.

For example, when we traveled in Turkey for a month, we discovered two pillars from the Roman era hidden in an out-of-the-way waterworks in Istanbul. The head of Medusa instead of being at the top of the pillar, was now reversed. Her eyes blank and unseeing, her hair of twisting stone snakes. And her story not known.

This next month, I will finish Rivers of Stone. Perhaps I'll be writing a poem a day (or a flash fiction a day) for the month of October. Maybe it's just OK to work a little on this or that, knowing that one morning, the story that began as a thread of an idea will take me on an unexpected turn. 

For I believe that IF Medusa was once a girl with dark eyes and beautiful long hair who bewitched all who saw her, that she never expected to find herself so feared and, finally, upside down and hidden deep in a cistern in Istanbul.

I'm not feeling so insecure about where those next writing ideas will come from or what I'll be writing next, for each morning begins with promise. For now, I appreciate those writers and readers from the Insecure Writer's Study Group who blog about what we all care about: the process of story telling. 

May you all have a good month. And a special thank you to this month's IWSG's co-hosts: Tyrean Martinson, Tara Tyler, Raimey Gallant, and Beverly Stowe McClure!

You may read more about Medusa from the Smithsonian or from my own Travel Blog.