I HEAR VOICES

by Elizabeth Sinclair

I know what you’re thinking, “Whacko!”  Right?  Be honest. Most people who hear voices get locked away or, at the very least, are heavily medicated.  Me?  I get paid for it, as do many of my closest friends.

It began when the last of my three children went to school, and I was left alone in the house with no one to talk to.  At first, they were faint and almost indecipherable whispers, but as time wore on and I had more time to myself, they became louder and louder, until I couldn’t ignore them.  It became clear to me that the only way to silence them was to transfer their voices from my head to my computer screen and allow them to babble away to their hearts content. Oddly, their babbling wasn’t babbling.  They were telling me their stories.

I immediately thought, “Hey, I have a gold mine here.  These faceless people will tell me a story and all I have to do is write it down. I’ll be in control.  I can twist the stories anyway I want.”  WRONG!

Once I gave them the freedom to be heard through me, they took over. And they turned out to be a persnickety bunch.  Some didn’t like the mate I’d chosen for them, others didn’t want to live through the story the way I’d had it envisioned.  Some even changed their names mid-stream because the name “didn’t fit their character.”  Others got pregnant without even consulting me.  It was chaos . . . but wonderful chaos.

Each day turned into an adventure to see where they’d lead me, what countries/states/time periods I’d visit, how they would unsnarl their tangled, unhappy lives and what lessons we’d both learn in the process.  I found myself looking forward to each day of writing like a child on Christmas morning faced with a stack of brightly wrapped presents.

The most recent voice to guide me through my writing is one very familiar to me.  As a child, my grandmother, Susie, played a huge part in my life. She was a bit stern, but had love and down-home wisdom flowing out her pores and into the world. Our friends and neighbors knew they could talk to Susie and go home feeling better. When I began the HAWKS MOUNTAIN series, I wanted a woman like that as one of the town’s ongoing characters.  And so, Granny Jo was born and became Susie, complete with her mannerisms, her sage advice and her love of humanity.  Writing this series is like sitting down with my grandmother each day and revisiting my childhood memories.

Many of you have expressed how much you, too, have come to love Granny Jo and hope to see her in other Hawks Mountain books.  Rest assured, Granny Jo will make an appearance in all of them in some way. Her next appearance will be in SUMMER ROSE, book #2 in the HAWKS MOUNTAIN SERIES, to be released by Bell Bridge Books in January 2012.