Into the Void

Writing is this odd push and pull of the solitary and the communal. We write alone (usually) but for others to read. We create, while the imaginations of readers breathe life into our creations. The words we put on paper are only the start of the story. In is in the minds of others where our worlds grow and our characters bloom.

I'm at a strange place in my journey as a writer. Many of my writing partners have launched careers in the last year - signing with agents, making book deals, self-publishing. I'm thrilled for them. I cheer their successes and fill up my TBR list on Goodreads with their upcoming releases. But for me, it also means I'm kind of, sort of, left behind. NOT THAT THIS IS BAD. I'm not complaining. It's just that with success comes obligations and responsibilities I don't have. For the moment, we're in different places. My list of writers who will read for me at the drop of a hat has shrunk. I've found some new ones, but there's a perception that because I have this group of writer friends, I have readers, critique partners, editors in abundance.

A year ago, that was true. A year ago, I was still toiling away on my beloved empath story. I believed in that story enough to keep trying, even when I should have let go. For whatever reasons, I had more readers than I knew what to do with for that story. The feedback was great. I'd write a new scene and have five people asking to see it by nightfall. I got spoiled.

Now, as I'm tip-toeing into querying for my YA contemporary romance, I feel woefully unprepared. Three people have read this story other than me. I've had in-line edits for the first 50 pages only. And it terrifies me. What if it sucks? What if I'm sending it out too early? What if those three readers, whom I admire and respect and appreciate, were sparing my feelings and it needs a complete overhaul?

With each rejection (there's been a couple already), I doubt more. I analyze and reanalyze every word of every email. Agents always state personal preference, but what if I need to take every piece of criticism and rewrite the whole thing?

That's what happened with my last manuscript and I'm not willing to let it happen again. I LOVE this story. I'm happy with it's shape, it's arc, it's resolution. Is it perfect? No, but I don't think it needs major rewrites (unless I rewrite it in first person, but that's a whole different post).

The problem is that I feel like I'm shouting into a void. With limited feedback, I have no external validation. The self-doubt is creeping in, not because there's cause for it, but because there's so little to combat it. If a tree falls in a forest but no one hears, does it make a sound? Does my fluffy little love story matter if no one ever reads it?

This is one of the angstiest posts I've ever written. Again, I don't mean to complain. But perhaps one of you, my readers, feel like you're yelling into the void. You're not alone. I'm standing there next to you. Maybe we're all there next to you. Maybe JK Rowling still feels like she's throwing word out into the world with nothing coming back. Maybe this is one of pesky artistic temperament things. We crave validation, we fear criticism, we are our own worst enemies.

Whatever the reason, it's not enough to keep me from yelling, even if an echo never comes back. I'll keep writing because I have stories to tell. Some may be terrible. Some may be wonderful. Some may rot on my hard drive (here's looking at you, high fantasy). But I will keep writing. And you should too.

Saturday Snippet

I started playing with a new story this week that's actually coming to me in FIRST PERSON PRESENT. I've never written in first! With my first MS, I tried first for about ten pages before I started going crazy. All the YA books I'd read recently were in first, so I wanted to try. That story was so much about atmosphere and scope. It didn't work in first.

But this story kind of seems to be working. I'm not really trying to finish it, just kind of poking at it as things come. It's a YA mystery with a small supernatural element. The main character, Addy, knows when someone is going to die but can't do anything to prevent it. This is a rough, unfinished scene between her and her best guy friend, Josiah (Josie). Shawn is her ex. I think that's all you need to know. Enjoy!

--

Josie looks at me and it’s the look I always wanted from Shawn. It’s a gaze that sees me, drinks me in like I am the only water he’ll ever need. Like I’m a treasure.

His thumb sweeps across my bottom lip on it’s way to my cheek. The fire and ice it leaves in its wake scares me, but not nearly as much as whatever in boiling inside me.

“I don’t understand,” is all I can get out.

A smile creeps across his lips and I can’t look away. I can’t tear my eyes away from his mouth.

“Don’t you?” His long fingers work their way through my hair, coming to rest at the back of my Neck. He tips my head back to face him.

I do understand. “How long...?”

He bends until his forehead grazes mine. “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? This is huge and life changing and...” I’m panicking because if he doesn’t kiss me, I’ll die,  and if he does kiss me, I’m ruining that special thing I’ve only ever had with Josie and why does he smell so freaking good?

He moves to speak into my ear. Not a whisper, but a hushed, reverent church voice. “I don't think you wake up one day in love,” he says. “I think you wake up and realize that thing you've felt for a long time is called love.”

The panic burst into a zillion butterflies, all scrambling to escape my stomach and soar, taking my heart with them.

Because now I know.

I press up on my toes, gathering Josie’s shirt into my fists.

I sigh the moment our lips meet. This is what a kiss is, this feeling of our lips and tongues and bodies anticipating and dancing and leading and following.It’s a fencing bout, a waltz, a synchronized swim. For every movement, ever subtle shift I make, he matches with his own.

I’m lost.

His hand slip from my hair, down my back, pressing me against him. As if I could be any closer. As if he could press us together and we’d never have to inhabit our own, solitary bodies again.

The Importance of Fairytales

Never do I feel as impotent as I do on days like today, when tragedy erupted in Boston. I'm not a doctor or a nurse or a bomb technician. I can't even give blood. Instead, I write pretty words. It feels foolish, frivolous, irreverent. How, in a world where people deliberately inflict pain on each other, can I justify devoting my time, creativity and energy to making up stories? How unimportant my work feels some days. But -

BEAUTY IS IMPORTANT

LIFE IS IMPORTANT

YOU AND I ARE IMPORTANT

Art might not save lives in the way surgery does, but it does indeed save life. Wrapping our souls and hearts and minds in beauty binds broken spirits like casts bind broken bones. Music and paintings and stories tell us we are not alone, that we matter. They tell us there is evil and darkness and hatred in this world, that at times the darkness win. But they also tell us life and light and love can defeat evil.

Hope rises from beauty, beauty from hope. My creative souls, what you do is vitally important. It matters. You matter. When evil destroys, don't allow it to keep you from creating, from reflecting the light of a loving Creator back into a dark and lonely world.

It is right and it is good to grieve. We, as humans, fail to live up to the bright promise of our potential. Violence and cruelty are all too real. But we cannot allow them to keep us from the work laid out before us, be it to run into fires to extinguish flames or to arrange 12 simple notes into endless, breathtaking arrangements.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Instead of retreating today, create something beautiful and share it. Take care of the people around you, even the ones you might not like. Let your life be a force for creation and not destruction. That is how evil is defeated.