Morgan’s Musings

Last night I was laying in bed, thinking about my blog and I decided to write something I don’t normally write about…real life. You see, somewhere in my mind I have the idea that no one wants to know the stories behind the stories, but just for today I’m gonna take a chance and write about it anyway.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about “the story” behind how my latest romance novel THE LEGACY OF SLEEPY HOLLOW came into being.

Any of you ever had panic attacks? Nasty little buggers that live in your mind like fiends of the unsure, preying on every little uncertainty you feel, plaguing you when you least expect them to pop up. After my 3rd child was born (that would be Trevvy), I started having them, defeated the suckers once I learned to notice the signs of one coming on, and didn’t have them again for 13 years!

Well, as luck would have it, when those 13 years ran out (around August of last year?) I started having them again…only this time the fiends disguised themselves using the then current uncertainties in my head–breathing. When one would come on, I would feel like I couldn’t breathe. I thought something was wrong with my throat. But there wasn’t a thing wrong, nothing was different…except my thoughts.

See, a few years ago, my youngest daughter (Kat) got a bad case of the croup. I didn’t know it was croup. I thought it was larangytis. She had the whole squeaky voice deal like you have, and I thought it was, well, just larangytis (sp?). Turns out it was CROUP. she woke up coughing in the night, and suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. She REALLY couldn’t breathe. I thought we were going to lose her. I was terrified. But she is a fighter, our little Kat, and she pulled through fine in just a few hours. We rushed her to the ER, she had a few breathing treatments, we came home, bought a humidifier, and she’s been fine ever since.

But mommie here was riddled with feelings of guilt. How could I not have known she had croup? Why didn’t I realize it BEFORE it got bad? There were things I knew I could have done if I’d only known, but…if you’re a mom, you know how your thoughts (especially ones of guilt) can plague you.

The truth is, it all happened so fast, over the course of several hours, there was really nothing I could have done, even if my thoughts wanted me to think differently at the time. Still I couldn’t seem to get over it, couldn’t get the terror of it out of my mind…It’s no wonder then that the panic attacks surfaced again (around August of 2007) as they did…by making me think I couldn’t breathe.

Okay, that’s the back story for the back story. Things kinda came to a climax in October 2007. That’s when I made my own trip to the ER…because I couldn’t breathe.

Oh, I could breathe, it just felt like I couldn’t. But I wasn’t having trouble taking in breaths at all. It was just the panic attacks. I’d been having them since August, but one afternoon in October while I was trying to watch Pirates Of The Caribbean 3: At World’s End with the family, I had the mother of all panic attacks. I knew what it was, but my mind held just enough uncertainty on the matter to make me think the worst. I thought I was dying. So I called my mom, and off we went to the ER.

A few hours and a nerve pill later, I could breathe again. But I HATE to take medication, so I was determined I would take as few of the pills as possible (the doc gave me 10, I’ve only taken 3…and I took them in halves, LOL). So I did what I always do when I need someone to talk to (which is pretty much all the time)…I talked to God. Yep. And I prayed. I asked God to give me something to take my mind off the things that were triggering the panic attacks, a project I could sink myself into so deeply I wouldn’t keep concentrating on trying to do for my body what it does for itself without me even thinking about it…breath.

I prayed constantly for something, anything to focus my thoughts on. And in January 2008, God sent me a project that was so exciting, so involving, and so absolutely FUN I forgot about the rest. I felt better. I could breathe. I was happy! And for the first time in more years than I care to admit to, I was enjoying doing what I used to love to do…writing.

Not only was I writing, the big man upstairs had given me a story that was simply amazing! Every night I went to sleep thinking about it. Every morning I woke up ready to write the next scene, the next segment. The characters seemed so real, their lives played out in my thoughts so vividly it was almost as if I had moved into Sleepy Hollow and was living out the story right alongside my characters.

When the story was finished and I had to type “The End”, I cried.

Seriously. I’d enjoyed the journey so much, I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to leave my “friends”. I didn’t want to leave the past, leave Sleepy Hollow. And I got scared. Now that the story was over, would the panic attacks come back? Well, they tried. But you know what? I “get it” now. I know what was causing them, and now I have the power to defeat them. Now I am concentrating on something else…YOU.

That’s right, I’m concentrating on you, my readers, and I am so excited that you will soon be able to read the story that I wrote, the story that has taken over 100 years to surface…the story of what happened in Sleepy Hollow after Ichabod Crane disappeared, after the Headless Horseman’s last ride, the story of how one man’s nemesis later becomes salvation. And of course, the story of two hearts coming together as one.

So there you have it…the story behind the story, behind the writing of THE LEGACY OF SLEEPY HOLLOW.