I secretly love it when the power flicks off during a storm. There’s a click and then a silence as the background hum of the electronics stop. The absence of the sounds makes me realize how much noise a house holds: the refrigerator hum, the rattle of the furnace, and dance of the water pump. The quiet reminds me of summer nights when the cicadas rhythmic strumming abruptly stops and the resulting silence seems conversely loud.
It’s early spring and at 8:35 pm, my power is lost. The weather is predicting to drop to zero overnight but I’m not worried. I build a fire in the wood stove, cracking the door so that the initial wood burns hot and fast, clearing the chimney of the night’s dampness. Then I stack it tight and close the draft so it will simmer all night.
Now I hear the sound of the wind as it bends tree branches and swirls across the windowpanes. It sounds like the rustling of dragon wings. I fumble through the darkness for a candle and match. As the wick catches, a circle of light is cast but unlike our electric bulbs, light from a candle creates spaces between the shadows rather than illuminating them. It’s a perfect time to write about magic, love, and dragons!
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is a good writer. I’ve read some of his books before and he’s the kind of writer who has the skill and talent to write any genre he wants. Those are the kind of writers I like to read. But what his Tweet reminded me of is that for a romance writer such as myself, there are many little tricks in the suspense author’s bag that can be helpful to a writer like myself.
