The Man With The Butterfly Mind
How to Write a Novel, How to Write a Bestseller, How to Write Romance, How to Write a… I read tons of how-to-write books, but after writing the first 50 pages or so, I’d put it away, throw it away or (mostly) hit ‘delete’.
Of course, I put my inability to finish a novel down to my hopelessness as a writer, my lack of motivation, my substandard intelligence. I blamed my personal inadequacies, as many of us tend to do. My constant failure was demoralizing and the thought of putting myself through that again became a huge barrier to writing anything in the end.
Except thankfully, that didn’t end up being the end. One day someone suggested that if I had so much trouble progressing from start to finish why not start from the end and write back to the beginning? That didn’t work either, but it got me thinking. I realised that a major setback to my progress was boredom. I’d get bored with the story.
You see, I love reading. I become engrossed, turning pages, unable to sleep till ‘the end’. And when I wrote according to a plan or an outline, where I’d mapped everything out as all the how-to books taught me, I already knew what happens and how it ends. No wonder I’d become bored. (And not saying this isn’t a good process… it just wasn’t right for me).
So I started with the character, in this case a real dog called Bimba, and a question, ‘what would happen if?’ And every day I’d walk with Bimba in my head and ask her what happened next, and she told me. And finally, I finished a novel. The first draft of one. I was over the moon and luckily even though I knew the story, I never got bored with the re-writes and editing. Finding the right way, the right word, the right arrangement of a sentence… was an interesting challenge and fun, and I wanted to give people a great reading experience.
Will this stay as my method? I don’t know. But I’m already looking forward to finding someone else to tell me their story.
Bimba
What happens when the only living soul who knows you are missing is your dog?
JD has lost his name, his memories, and the everyday skills we all take for granted. But it’s sort-of OK, because he can’t remember what his life should be like.
Bimba has lost her owner. It’s all her fault, and she’s determined to find him, give him love-you-licks, and make-it-better.
When Meko finds an adorable furry bundle of dog is the reason she can’t open the door at work, she doesn’t hesitate to help. When DrGreg finds a captivating Japanese woman with an unresponsive dog are his next patients, he doesn’t hesitate to help. When MrsB momentarily loses her self-doubt and her phantom allergies, she finds a tentative willingness to help.
As the strangers’ lives and destinies converge around Bimba, none of them expect what happens next.
An inspiring story of loss and grieving, redemption and overcoming adversity, where what we get isn’t what we thought we wanted, and often happiness is disguised, waiting for us to catch on or catch up. A story with heart and humour, as uplifting as it is captivating.
The Story Behind the Story
The author met Bimba and her best friend Lola, both rescue dogs, in Agua Amarga, a beautiful isolated village in the stunning Cabo de Gata National Park in Southern Spain. We were looking after them while their owner was away visiting family overseas. She was cute and quiet and her owner said she’d been mistreated. So how did she become one of the main characters in The Man with the Butterfly Mind?
Driving home from a stock-up visit to the supermarket and not coming across a single other vehicle I wondered what would happen to Bimba and Lola, if for some reason, I didn’t make it back.
It’s not a nice thought is it?
The idea persisted (always a good indication that there’s something that wants to be explored). And later wandering over the cliff tops between Burgau and Praia de Luz in the Algarve, Portugal the idea for this story started to take shape.
At around that time I spoke with a friend who’d had a very lengthy surgery and her story of forgetting things and re-learning afterwards, reminded me of another close friend. Her son had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident and been in a lengthy induced coma.
People, me included, thought you had surgery or were in a coma and when you ‘woke up’ everything ‘went back to normal’. It’s not that simple. Sometimes you don’t get everything back, and sometimes you don’t even get close to ‘normal’ back.
