You know, I always write fictional characters, and so some creative non-fic on my blog.  And I am working on a concept that is much closer to home, about my mom who is dying of Alzheimer’s.

I realized that I have a truer story to tell.  I started to go through it last night, something related to my daughter and motherhood.

But where do we draw the line when fictionalizing reality?  For example, in the Alzheimer’s story I’ve already hit a bump.  My sis is the primary caretaker but I didn’t want to put her in the story because our relationship was nearly destroyed by this.  And I don’t want to risk insulting her.  Or, will she be insulted if I DON’T put her in the book?

Have to explore what it does mean to do this in reality.  At some point, of course, the character takes over and things change but I’m curious about what people think about this.

Last night I was too wiped out from my daughter’s 3rd birthday party to edit, but tonight I did 10 pages to make up. (I’m revising 3 pages a night.) Once again, I have Holly Lisle to thank for that.

I also booked the URL for my nonfiction spiritual book, we’ll see how that goes. I’m psyched. I’m also pooped, so off to bed I go.

I’m feeling led spiritually to write something “completely different”. This is how it started: I felt like I should be doing some more to share my spirituality. After thinking about it, I thought my story, which is just FULL of divine intervention, should be written and published. (I have a working title but I’m not going to share it since I see the URL name is AMAZINGLY still available and I’m awaiting my stolen credit card replacement to book it.)

I went from thinking of memoir (think Anne Lamott style, “Traveling Mercies” type story), to something a little different. I was watching Dr. Phil (yes, I know, it’s terrible, but I’m addicted at 3pm every day) and he had Star Jones Reynolds from the View on. She wrote a new book and while she can annoy at times, I was actually intrigued because this was not exactly a “how to” book (on how to be more fabulous and find love), it was more, according to her, of “what worked for me”. So then I thought, that’s a great idea. I can write what worked for me. I also wonder if there’s others who feel the way I do. Christianity, I believe, is a true path, but for me it was never enough and there were beliefs I had outside of it.

The idea is for people to embrace who they truly are with regard to spirit, and to find God within that - that’s what I did, and I found God loud and clear. I’m practicing Christianity now, but I do have disagreements with the religion (as a whole) and things I believe outside of its teachings. It took me a REALLY long time and lots of tears to be ok with that, and I want to help others, and just maybe give them hope and make them laugh (or cry, whatever, lol).

The caveat (isn’t there always one) is presenting spiritual truths because I’m terribly afraid of writing something spiritually incorrect, which would be dangerous in all kinds of ways. So I guess if I do this, I’d have to have God lead me line by line. Oy.

I also came up with an idea of a podcasting / Internet radio show with speakers, perhaps monthly or more, to speak on spiritual matters, things addressed outside the book. I’d love if attendees could be cross-denominational - more faiths than just Christianity. That would be ideal.

Is this a nutty idea? Would anyone read a book like that from some unknown like me?