March Author Series #3: The Birth of Circles by Ruby Standing Deer

Inspiration can strike us writers in a myriad of ways. Sometimes ideas even come to us in dreams! This happens to be the case with today's guest. Please welcome Ruby Standing Deer as she describes how an unexpected guest or two arrived as she slept and dictated her first novel. Read on and show her some love!

THE BIRTH OF CIRCLES

My dreams inspire me. Most are rich with story material, and I have journals filled from them. Circles was a bit different. An elder came to me and said, "Why don't you get off your butt and write a book?" He vanished and I sat up in bed wondering, "What book?" I was about to find out.

The elder came to me at one in the morning, and I woke at 3-am to a woman who called herself  'Bright Sun Flower.' (These names are not uncommon to me. I am a mixed breed mutt with American Indian—Cherokee, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Irish/Scottish, German and a drop or two of Norwegian.) She started by telling me about herself, then about her grandson.

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At 4-am, Circles was born. I became Bright Sun Flower and wrote up the first two chapters in a fog. I remember just stopping, my fingers lifted from the keyboard. The sun peered through the blinds and there I sat with two chapters of a book I needed to read—not having a clue what I had written!

After reading it, I found myself quite surprised that those words came from me err... Bright Sun Flower. I wrote throughout most of the day until my stomach reminded me I needed to eat. I had dogs to walk and found myself walking them, but not with them. Circles demanded my attention. I actually wore out the keyboard on my laptop and had to buy another as the keyboard was not a separate part.

Each character came to me and I found myself with an entire band of people all wanting to tell me about a boy named, "Feather Floating In Water." He is an active boy full of life and never wants to stop talking long enough to breathe. I had to watch my writing. I started to write the same way he talked! I became my characters, or maybe they became me. I still hear them in my mind even though Circles was published in January. I am now writing a second book because I cannot sit and watch T.V. or read a book long enough to get involved without somebody in the second Circles telling me that I need to write something down before I forget it, as if they would allow me.

 I feel my way around life exploring what comes. My writing style stems from that. I allow the story to evolve on its own, take on a life of its own, and allow it to become what it wants to be. The story is alive with a will its own. I am simply the medium by which the story expresses itself.

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      Life is a wondrous mystery that I still explore. I spent my youth "feeling" my way thought it. I traveled throughout the seventies, standing on one highway ramp or another, exploring the many corridors of our country, learning about life and what it had to offer.

      In 1979, deep in winter, I settled down. I was lucky enough to become the first woman journeyman pressman of a major newspaper in Colorado. After ten years of working on printing presses, an injury forced me down another path.

     I made and sold jewelry, cared (still do) for abandoned animals, volunteered for a horse rescue as well as a no kill shelter. I went to school for so many different careers that ended up combining my credits to get a degree in horticulture. Unfortunately, or so I thought back then, two car accidents during my last semester, my last class, prevented my pursuing it as a living.

    My animals taught me about myself through their own lives. They showed me that I had the patience to push ever onward toward my destiny, that to give up meant the end. They helped me learn that if I willed myself to wade through all the murky waters, eventuality, I would see clearly enough to move forward.

     I am currently working on Circles Two and a book of short stories of the paranormal that will have something for everyone even if you are not sure you believe. I might just change your mind!

My mixed blood lines have show me many things in life that I am truly grateful for. Thank you, Great Mystery, for the dreams, for the guidance, for the whispers in my mind.

For more on Ruby and her work, please visit her website: http://www.rubystandingder.com

Also, check out Ruby's short story, "Courage Through Fear" in the anthology, Evolution, Vol.1, available at: Amazon.com!