Yesterday afternoon, seemingly out of nowhere, inspiration hit me.
It almost made me fall from the rock where I was enjoying my tea and Dutch stroopwafels ( the latter were sent to me by my dear brother and his girlfriend ).
If they had sent the tea too, it would have turned into ice tea in the 2 weeks or so that the mail seems to take these days from The Netherlands to Portugal ( serious snail mail ). And, in all honesty, I much rather have ice coffee.
Back to yesterday afternoon, tea time. The weather was pretty amazing and so was the view. I was the only one near the river beach, that can be found at about twenty minutes walking from the house that I'm currently residing in. Just in case, I had brought one of my notebooks. FYI: I have a notebook on me 99% of the time One way or another, the rocks reminded me of Last Summer, when my 7 year old nephew jumping in the same river ( about 5 kms from the spot where I was having my tea, near another river beach ). And then, I started picturing myself being a little afraid of that and especially of the height and the possible rocks underneath the water. I also was reminded of myself, as a little boy, shivering at the side of the chlorine swimming pool where I learnt to swim in the mid to later 1980s. Just smelling chlorine, brings back that (semi) trauma. It doesn't help that I've had lung issues since I was born but it was also the lack of fat on my bones that often made me feel cold near the water or pool's edge, especially when I had to wait for my turn and when I was feeling nervous/ anxious. I still am a somewhat skinny vinny but I found a way to deal with cold water and that is either not going in or making it quick. Anyhow, before I forget what this post was about, my mind did the math and ended up thinking of little hyper ( one of my alter egos and a character in my writing ) standing on a high rock, above the river, afraid to jump in, while other dinos made fun of him, calling him chicken. Then the chicken made me think of an earlier post called "Cold Turkey" that had nothing to do with water. In fact, it was inspired by a coffee break. If you missed that write up, here's a link and I decided to change little hyper in the turkey from that story. I pictured cold turkey on a rock, with other birds - down in the river - calling him a chicken and voila a new story came into existence. Here's a close up of 'Cold Turkey' that shows off my MsPaint skills.
I wrote a couple of pages and realized I could turn this in one single children's book ( that's fun for adults too ). It then hit me that I could make my separate books about the world's favorite sensitive dino plus another character.
In case you weren't up to date, I recently decided to go for a handful of smaller books, following the example of my good friend @whatamidoing now @selfhelp4trolls But, up till yesterday, I still imagined all of them to be mainly about little hyper or hypersensitivosaurus. Yesterday I realized though that I could make the separate books about this kindhearted giant lizard and one of the other creatures in his dinoverse.
If you've followed me for a while, you will know that there's a bunch of them: MM Wolf, Mrs. Porcupine, Old Krok and The Fear Hare are the first that come to mind. We can now add Cold Turkey to the family.
So, yesterday, I started picturing a little book about Little Hyper and Cold Turkey, starting with the scene where we find Cold Turkey shivering on top of a rock above the water, feeling out of his element.
Here's a sneak peak:
Jump! Jump! Jump! all the birdies down in the water screamed and then they started making poook poooookkkkk poooooookkkking sounds and flapping their wings, imitating chickens, mocking the bird on top of the rocks, that was shivering like crazy and feeling sorry for himself.
From where he was standing, *50 turkey feet above the river, the water looked cold and the drop seemed infinite. He also worried about invisible rocks underneath the water. Aside from that, the wind was freezing and it seemed to have joined the game, as if wanted to blow him into the water.
This was supposed to be a fun thing but he wasn't enjoying it at all.
*10 turkey feet is approximately one meter.
I will end it here ( as I hope you will buy my future book ) and add to it that Little Hyper is watching the situation from a distance and that he will meet Cold Turkey the next day.
I also decided that I want to make and sell art connected to my stories. The quickly made picture above this particular post hints at what you can expect.
I guess it's now time to actually start writing my first dino ( children's ) book ;<)