The Roses of Prose: parallel universes

Monday, October 3, 2016

An Unconventional Conversation

--By Vonnie Davis

As I "may" have mentioned before, my grandson is a freshman at MIT this year. While he’s never read any of my books, he does ask what I’m writing about now. Since I write on the very steamy side, I’m pleased his level of interest stops at this point.

On a recent Saturday night, Ryan and several students were hanging out in the common area of their dormitory, discussing parallel universes and the possibility of life in other forms or on other planets. Ry mentioned his grandma writes books about bearshifters.

The guys started asking him questions, so he sent me a text. "G-Ma...in your bearshifter books, how do you describe the transformation from human to bear? Reply ASAP. The guys want to know." At the time I was working on my latest shifter book, so I copied the first shifter scene into a text.

Well, that only fueled their imaginations. More questions followed. "Where do you get your data? Do you just like think of this stuff 'cause it could so totally happen. Oh, one of the guys wants to know if you're friends with J.K. Rawlings." Bwahahaha!

I replied. Then Ryan called. Texting was too slow. He put me on speaker phone. I could hear kids with various accents asking questions. Did I write time travel? Did I get into parallel universes? (thank God they never brought up sex!) I told them to write and read paranormal, one had to stop thinking linear like you do when working on a calculus problem or a physics proof. You had to think sideways. Allow all the “what-if’s” to come into the equation of creativity.

Their excitement ramped another notch. Yes! They got this concept. Go figure! All the while I'm thinking, the yearly tuition to go here is $69,000 and you're talking about bearshifters with a romance author? Your parents would flip out if they knew!

A couple of the guys talked in Japanese and were reminded to speak English. I’d taken Japanese when I went to college in my forties. I replied in their language, hoping I was pronouncing things correctly, giving them a touch of home, and not saying something like, "Your mother smells like a pool of dead fish." Wouldn't that just be the luck?

"Dude! Your grandma speaks Japanese, too? She's uber cool." Whew, remove foot from Japanese stumbling mouth.

Bearshifters. You never know what's going to grab kids. We talked for almost an hour. Grandma and MIT students. An unconventional conversation.

Complete change of topic. I've self-published my first book, published five years ago. I spruced it up a little and had a new cover put on it.

AMAZON BUY LINK: http://a.co/1YlLvlT

Also, releasing today is a Christmas novella for .99. Part of it might sound familiar since it was in my Holiday story that began "A phone ringing at two am, never brought good news." I changed it a lot, but the reason for the title is still in the story.