No one was harmed in the writing of this chapter.

Blocked path or new opportunity? A small tree had fallen across the road when I tried to leave a great writing session. I called it in and went back to writing. (Photo by Emily Weaver)

I’ve worked on this novel in interesting places over the last few months: on mountaintops, on the beach, in parks, on the shore of a lake, down by the river and off the beaten paths of walking trails.

I don’t hate writing indoors. I often do, but nature is so charming when it isn’t trying to kill you.

I should preface this by saying, no one was harmed in the writing of my latest chapter… no one with a pulse at least. There were two characters I knew I had to kill off when I drove up to Jump Off Rock to write on May 10.

Jump Off Rock offers a panoramic view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from its perch on the heights of Laurel Park, N.C. I have found a lot of inspiration on this beautiful, legend-loaded mountaintop and this day was no different.

I was typing away on my novel in my Corolla cocoon when lightning crashed in front of me. Thunder rumbled behind me. Rain and petals pelted my car and the windows fogged. The people around me fled as I wrote.

I’ve been in worse and this definitely wasn’t the end of the world, but it was just the storm I needed for an end-of-the-world story in a chapter with severe weather.

I wrote about a fictional dark cloud filling the sky as a real dark cloud filled the sky.

I was working up to thunder and lightning in my story as thunder and lightning danced around me in a surreal land where fact and fantasy met.

The words were flowing. My fingers were flying.

Then a bolt of lightning struck a little close. Thunder crashed half-a-second later. The torrent of rain had simmered down to a rampant drizzle. I was in a good part in the chapter. I hated to leave, but I thought a moving car would probably make for a harder target so I packed up my laptop and notes and headed back down the mountain.

A small tree had fallen to block the main road down by the time I left. In hindsight, I could have turned around and tried a different road, but I saw the blocked path as an opportunity in my chapter. I called in the tree, then went back to writing.

Firefighters arrived to save the day as they always do and I wrote a few more paragraphs before heading home. (I need to find a way to work a firefighter into my story.)

Inspiration is everywhere. The point is to answer it when it calls.

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