By Barbara Sinor, Ph.D., Author of Finding Destiny (Marvelous Spirit Press, 2016)

As I sit at my keyboard this morning, I begin to wonder if another book resides within me. I promised my readers there would be a sequel to my novel; in fact, my publisher stated this at the end of the book. However, there is an indisputable part of me that wants to bask in the glow of the release that my seventh book affords. I want to celebrate for a solid year! I want to talk about how such a remarkable story came to be written and why it took me three years to complete. I want to have multiple book event readings and signings, and to check Amazon each week to revel in how well it is being received by the public. Nonetheless, as I glare at a blank screen, all the above dalliances seem dry in comparison to pushing my writer’s mind to search my characters’ fictitious lives to develop more journeys for them to manifest their existence, and then transmit it to my receptive fingers.

Finding Destiny by Barbara Sinor

Writing a book is a task of will, creativity, time, and the courage to fail. It also involves finding new words—part prose and part poetry. Perhaps words that gather the emotions of people in every corner of the world must be found. It is a mind rummage of nouns, adjectives, and verbs pushed remotely to fit a sentence sideways while unfolding a vision forward to hit each brain cell with color, taste, smell, and emotion deep within a core to stir the imagination and instruct the reader to linger. Writing a novel is a task of inner power against outer. It is a twisting of fictional plots to mold an undetermined entrance and exit of characters that whisper their sole importance into your ear. Writing a book becomes a constant hum within the mind that signals research, notes, dreams, and laughter at how your life changes to accommodate the words that spring into paragraphs forming another tirade full of adventure.

Quiet, there must be absolute quiet when writing. The silence brings visions of windows viewing fields filled with lavender and muddy horse hooves tracing the street like modern art. The quiet walls of my office echo sounds of unreasoning bullies and petite voices of children screaming near a river’s edge. Yes, the walls speak to a writer; as do the trees, as they display their leaves changing shades like chameleons at the county fair. When my mind is deep in writer’s concentration and my Havenese mix whines to let me know I have once again forgotten her mealtime, the silent meditation of fumbling for the correct word to use as a profound way to end a sentence is shattered, and will never be retrieved. Sometimes silence is a necessary evil, deafening that no words have been written, and self-set deadlines soon will appear like runners’ end-line ribbons strung across the track, only to be broken. But, I can only write when the house is quiet. It is then when my keyboard shouts its tap tap tap that consoles my writer’s soul. Perhaps the never-ending winter months will bring the elusive muse to my side once again.

Not so strangely, I reread my novel and blatantly recognize the theme of women’s rights peering between the lines. I decide it gives the book more substance than I had intended and honor my inner-knowing spirit for taking the risk to allow my personal beliefs to surface for the reader to judge. Also, the nuances of my experience with manifestation and creating reality surface to form a journey through loss and pain are a foundation for this story, how can I top that with a sequel? Should I share other aspects of my life experiences and beliefs in a sequel?

I need to remember, we all have hidden places held deep in our hearts to draw upon when writing. I could choose to address issues that hide in my mind like well kept secrets to continue my initial published tale. But, do I even have the required fortitude to withdraw from social circles, bury myself in grammar and line-edits, or recognize the suggestions offered me by a muse that logically seems too old to understand what the current reading public even desires? Do I have the stamina to be awakened from a restful sleep, or a dream of memories with loved ones, to be pulled from their warmth to place my fingers yet again on the worn unrecognizable keyboard letters to form unending sentences that may be erased when reread in the consciousness of dawn? Does my brain even contain one more imaginary scene to gather enough speed to create a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter to develop a storyline worthy of my initial characters, and be worth reading? Scores of questions keep circling my aura as if to tease me into making a decision.


Barbara Sinor, Ph.D. is a retired psychotherapist living in northern California. Sinor’s books are highly endorsed in the non-fiction genres of addiction recovery, childhood abuse/incest, adult children of alcoholics, and other self-help and inspirational topics. Finding Destiny is Sinor’s long-awaited first novel.  Dr. Sinor’s writing appears in the quarterly Recovering the Self: A Journal of Hope and Healing, as well as other magazines, newsletters, and blogs. She currently facilitates women’s groups and is working on the sequel to Finding Destiny. She can be contacted through her website:  www.Dr.Sinor.com.