Hello everyone, I’m over that whole festive break, how about you? Now, this post’s title isn’t meant to make light of mental illness at all. Nor is the rest of the post as I go on to admit that I often feel slightly insane as I discuss demons suing people, maths that makes pockets in time and how exactly one would use ‘douche canoe’ in a sentence. And I talk about such things daily in the same casual manner that the weather, world events and child rearing is discussed by ‘normal’ people… or is that just by people who aren’t writers?

This feeling of mild insanity has meant a lot of well-meaning friends and family frequently post ‘crazy writer’ jokes on my personal Facebook page. It is, however all done in the best intentions as they seem to enjoy watching me mentally turn myself inside out trying to sort out the voices in head and get them down on paper. I feel right now I am slightly more insane than usual and I blame it on being so fond of first person prose. You see, both my books (Bonnie’s Story: A Blonde’s Guide to Mathematics and Isis, Vampires and Ghosts – Oh My!) are written in the first person, and yet my two protagonists aren’t carbon copies of each other. Yes they are both sarcastic, dominant and strong willed women… but that is about it. I have tried my damnedest to make them different people and not the carbon copy protagonist that happens with some authors who write various books (and series) in the first person. Different people seem to blur and meld into the same personality and almost same person… and I always feel a little disappointed when this does happen. Hence me trying my best to keep these ladies apart.

And usually I can keep them apart as I mentally become either Bonnie or Stephanie when I sit down and write of their adventures. In the past, this has been easy as I’ve basically written them one book at a time with large gaps in between them. This means, I can slowly slip into being one or the other and spend a good time in their mindset to get it right. Sadly this has recently changed as I’ve been trying to drum up interest (and fans) for Bonnie by blogging as her on a weekly basis on her Facebook page. I don’t mind doing the weekly blogs, and I do hope people are actually reading them and enjoying the continued story. However, when I then try and sit down and continue in Stephanie’s world while writing the next book in the series (There’s no place like Hell) I find myself having to delete the witty come back and sarcastic retorts and redo it as it had been more a Bonnie saying than a Stephanie one. So far, I’ve not had Stephanie snort, ladylike or otherwise, but it has been a close thing. If Bonnie appears on the Moon in elbow length leather gloves… yeah, you know I’ve cracked and lost that professional edge I am trying to pretend to have. I think of it as socks… stick with me here. I put on one pair of socks to be Stephanie and another to be Bonnie. Right now I feel like I’m wearing both pairs, one over the other, and the pair on top has holes in them so the socks beneath are poking through. No, please don’t get the straightjacket yet, I thought that rather a good analogy.

I’m fairly sure I’d get more sympathy from friends if Isis, Vampire and Ghosts – Oh My! was available for them to read, but that isn’t going to be the case until later this year. If they could just see  how different these gals are, they’d understand my struggle. In the mean time I will just go cross eyed as I move from the blonde, bossy Hairdresser to the grumpy, cynical ex-accountant now ‘Protector of Souls’ in the one day. And then, trying to write like me here on my own blog – good God I ask for a lot, don’t I? This is why I mention multiple personalities (and holey socks), and why I have a strong feeling I’m not the only writer who had this problem.  And, of course, why I describe myself as being insane… but I do honestly mean it in the best possible way. 😉

And so, with Bonnie and co to the left of me and Stephanie and her ‘men’ to my right… do my own thoughts ever get a word in edgewise? Ummm, yeah, I think so. Though right now trying to run two different worlds and be two different women – while still being my Haus Frauing self, wrangling hordes on their loooong summer holidays in ‘reality’ – the lines aren’t so much as blurring as just tangling up and tripping me so I fall flat on my face a lot. Yes, you too can become a writer if you suffer from this on a daily basis. 😀

Hoping to have more interesting things to shed light on in my next blog post… doing my best to not bore you with the antics of my hordes, those ‘dear diary’ type dull monologues on how I spent my holidays or chat about food and the old recipes I have been bringing back to life. Have a good one and hopefully chocolate will be issued and sanity will resume shortly.

Until next time,

Janis OOXX.