Okay, let me tell you a little bit about Janie. Janie is a girl who has lived in my head for the last eight yeasrs. She was just a vague image the first six years--but one thing was clear from day one: She HATES being called Janelle, it's Janie or just plain Jane.
A little bit about this girl taking shelter in my mind--she's a snotty bitch, but as the story progresses, she's met with a mission that changes her right down to the core. She's quite impatient. If I don't write about her for too long she starts yelling at me that her story must be told.
Sometimes I wonder if she was in fact the one writing her own story. The odd thing with her is she sat on a shelf in the back of my mind for six years before actually coming alive. When she did, I had no choice but to tell her story.
I'll be honest, half the fist book wrote itself. I had a general concept of what I wanted to do with Janie and who she was. I knew minor details about her friends. But it wasn't until I fully succumbed to this blonde goddess that her story finally came tumbling out.
It took me about three months to write the first book--once I actually stopped letting it be just an idea and actually WROTE it. It was like I was possessed when it happened--hence my belief that Janie is actually the one behind everything.
What happened was this, I was living in Narragansett and feeling all types of motivated living by the beach. I lived with five other roommates and almost all of them had read the original bits of Chapters One-through Two, which is all I had gotten out in the six years prior. Keep in mind what I had was so scant that it actually became chapters One through Five one I put all my efforts into making Janie and her friends as real as possible.
One thing you shold know about Janie and all her friends is that they're all composites of me and all my friends. Janie specifically, somehow became a perfect composite of myself and my sister over the years.
In actually writing the book, it was a combination of the beach atmosphere and my roommates' support and ego-stroking that helped me finally sit down and tell the first installment in Janie's story in its entirety.(*Thank you Lora, Kristin, Jasmyn, and YES, even Amy. And continued thanks to my sister who still calls me up to ask what the hell Janie is going to encounter next.)
What happened while I wrote was the oddest thing. I was working anywhere from sixty to eighty hours every week at Cumberland Farms, third shift at that. I'd get home at six in the morning every day--and that's when Janie took over. Literally. For the next eight hours every day, my soul was hers.
It started off with me just rewriting what I already had. But suddenly things started changing. Things I didn't know were to happen started happening in the story. People I didn't know existed suddenly became Janie's best friends. People who did exist became unimportant and obsolete and faded away. The whole story just fell together like that. There were days I'd be writing for hours and then I'd go back and read it and it was like I was reading someone else's work. I was actually blown away by the story and the fact it actually came from ME.
My roommates got the biggest kick out of watching me work too. They'd walk by on their way to work at 6:30 in the morning, I'd be glued to the computer typing up a storm. They'd get back at 2, I'd still be going. "Have you slept yet?" They'd ask. As a matter of fact, no.
Janie didn't allow it once I gave her full control. I used to try bargaining with the girl, but to no avail. She was just too strong.
"I'm hungry, can I at least eat?"
No.
"But I really have to go to the bathroom, I can't hold it anymore!"
Finish the chapter first, my little puppet.
"But Janie, I'm so thirsty, please can I get a drink?"
No! You're good for another couple of pages. Tell them!
And so it went for three solid months. I'd average about three or four hours of sleep a day, on the porch in order to maintain my tan of course. Between work and Janie, there wasn't much time for anything else.
I took a two year break from Janie, but I am looking forward to letting her consume me once again. It's due time to put out the second installment of her story. (It's actually a trilogy.)
I don't want to go into too much detail on Janie's story, wouldn't want to ruin it for anyone. But I will give you a link to her first Prologue--there's actually two. Just to give you an idea of what I write and what this girl is all about.
Click below and keep in mind my shit is copyrighted--so don't even think about it, buddy!
