Epiphanies are those rare “lightbulb” moments we humans have when things suddenly click in our mind and either what we’ve been stressing over or an understanding that’s been eluding us becomes wonderfully and incredibly clear.
These moments are rare for me as I’m stubborn and pig-headed by nature and tend to wrestle with ideas and concepts until I’ve wrangled them into submission. I’m also a fairly well-read and generally knowledgeable when it comes to a wide variety of topics and find interest in anything from a great joke to a good recipe to astronomy to ancient history and beyond.
I’m not a genius – far from it. In fact, I’d more likely label myself blissfully ignorant (though I’m well-aware of the horrors in this world I try not to hold onto the world’s pain and suffering as if it were my own).
All of these things combine make it rare for me to have epiphanic (not that’s not a real derivative of that word but it’s doing what I want it to) moments.
Which made yesterday such a wonderful day for me –
I had an epiphany!
For months now I’ve been working on plotting book 3 for the Chronicles series and trying to figure out how to wrap everything up in book 4 for the grand finale. I’ve always known in the back of my mind a very general concept for what had to be done and who would be part of it (character-wise that is). But I could never quite get a handle on exactly what was going to happen and why.
Then, I took three days off to spend Easter with my family. I did not write or edit or do anything work-related (even though weekends are usually my most productive time)… and the biggest thing I did was not worry about not working!
Now, when I sat down yesterday to dig into some larger edits required for book 2 I paused between chapters to simply take a breath and find a more comfortable position to sit in when it happened…
Suddenly my brain kicked into overdrive and I understood not only why book 3 had to take place in the past but how everything came together in book 4 – including the conclusion to Taya’s (my protagonist’s) character arc!
And I got excited – so much so that my heart raced and I felt as if I had to shout out my good fortune to the world. Of course, no one was around at the time and I had to keep going on the edit but that excitement kept me in high-gear for the rest of the day – giddy, positive and yet focused.
So why is it that today I’m in such a pissy/grumpy mood?
My epiphany is still magnificent – it clarifies where I’m going with this series and still has me doing mini-happy dances whenever I think about it. But I’ve been snappy and impatient all morning. Part of me desperately wants to take a nap and let my brain relax since my morning dream was one of those you just don’t want to wake up from, but it didn’t exactly let me rest either – and I’m always a bear when I don’t get enough sleep… but somehow it feels like more than that is going on.
Has this ever happened to you?
Author MJ Moores 