Guest Post – Liza O’Connor: when stories write themselves

poetry and prose about place

Guest Post – Liza O’Connor: when stories write themselves

When stories write themselves…

By Liza O’Connor

I have two stories coming up soon that fall under the category of writing themselves.

In the first book, Lessons from Wabbaseka, coming Mar 8, the story comes from my personal life. As will happen during a career, I was let go when my company downsized. When my great aunt and uncle heard I was unemployed, they wrote me a letter inviting me to come to Wabbaseka Arkansas (population 300) and live with them. While I remained in NJ and located a new job, I couldn’t get the ‘what if I had gone to Wabbaseka’ out of my head.

I loved my great aunt, but I was pretty certain I’d go crazy in such a tiny town. Also, to get a job, I would have had to drive an hour to Pine Bluff to find a crappy underpaid job. (And I hate Pine Bluff, it was where I grew up.) So, I wrote them back, reminding them I had a house in NJ, and I would find another well-paying job, which I quickly did.

But I couldn’t get them out of my mind, I kept thinking about what if I had really gone to Wabbaseka. The only way I could stop wondering was to play the scenario out on paper. Not surprisingly, it starts out funny as I’m driven insane by the people so very different than me, but then it gets serious. Turns out there are a handful of single men in the town of 300, and I fall in love with one and then someone tries to kill me. (That has actually happened many times in my life. Fortunately, I don’t die easily.) In the story, I did change everyone’s names except the first names of my aunt and uncle. I changed their last name, but they are the reason the story exist, and they had to be Aunt Peck and Uncle Lee.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078WS1TDW

The second story that wrote itself is Arrival: Titan coming May 7th.

It came to be due to Cassini and NASA discoveries in the last year.

Seriously, the second book of this series was dead in the water until Cassini and NASA discovered some mind-boggling stuff in this last year. Stuff so astounding that the world isn’t ready for it. Nor have they gone out of their way to clearly state what they know. Even when they shared the information, it was done in an obscure way, so most people will never realize what their discoveries meant.

Fortunately, the truth is right there for anyone to see. That truth enabled a vibrant story to come alive all by itself. While I made up the sentients that my people have to learn to live with on Titan, the truly crazy stuff is all compliments from NASA and Cassini. With the revelations from Cassini and NASA, this book became the easiest book I’ve ever written. And while most will think I’m one imaginative author, and this is a crazy story, the astounding truth is that the impossible to believe stuff is almost certainly true, only NASA does not want to admit it. But the pictures from Cassini and NASA reveal the truth to anyone who wants to see the truth. And in this case, reality is stranger than most fiction.

But there is no need to turn your world upside down with uncomfortable probable realities. You can safely read the story as a highly imaginative Sci-Fi and be no worse for it. That’s how I’m dealing with it.

I have a blog on the main extraordinary events, with Cassini and NASA pics to help prove my points. I should warn you in advance: no one has declared me spot on. Although, I have gotten many compliments for my creative imagination.

Honestly, I don’t need anyone to actually see what I see. I just need you to have a grand time enjoying the book that NASA and Cassini made possible.

Arrival: Titan coming May 7

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