I’m currently working on what I hope are the final revisions for my work-in-progress, which has taken me five years to write. Five long, complicated years.
I’d started this book soon after publishing my debut novel, Surrender at Canyon Road. During the work on that story, and while plotting this new one, my mom was my go-to for brainstorming, critiquing and encouragement. We’d chat daily by phone and I’d email her the current copy of a page, a chapter or more. She’d read eagerly, and provide priceless feedback about what worked and why, and what didn’t. And why.
Encouragement
No matter how sick she was, and she’d been sick for a lot of years, she always bounced back and was always right there, engaged and wanting to hear more about what I was working on or where I was stuck in the plot, and, as an avid reader of romantic suspense, she’d always, excitedly, offer ideas and suggestions.
The best critique partner is someone who understands their suggestions might not fit your vision at all, and who take cues, not insults, from your responses. That was my mom. She’d build on ideas I’d respond to and sometimes, together, we’d come up with a solid plot point, or an absurd Mad Libs type of scenario that would have us laughing until tears fell.
A Dark Cloud Hovered
A couple of years ago, everything changed, and she was no longer able to brainstorm or critique like she used to. Oh, she wanted to. Desperately. And I wanted her to. Desperately. But cancer is a cruel, cruel bitch, and no matter how much she tried, her body had other plans.
Little by little my story became a symbol for me of how sick she was and, honestly, without her input and excitement, I no longer had the desire to keep writing it.
Or anything.
Meanwhile, as she grew more and more ill, so did my senior pets.
One-by-one, I lost them all.
And then I lost her.
I couldn’t look at this story without the excruciating pain of grief and loss. I tried to keep going but started coming up with ways to kill my main characters. I was done with them, their story, everything. I was sad, angry, frustrated, and seeing the story as nothing but a vomited pile of pointless words.
After a couple of months at the end of last year during which I didn’t even open the file, I finally considered how much my mom wanted to see this story completed. I realized, after how much effort she put into it and into me while being tortured by her own body, letting it collect dust would be a tremendous insult to her.
Starting Again
I searched and found a handful of beta readers, people I respect and trust, and sent this story out to them.
There were no pats on the head, there was simply honest feedback, the same type of feedback I’d always gotten from my mom – who was both my greatest fan and my harshest critic. This feedback gave me hope, and made me realize I wasn’t seeing my story the right way. I was too close to it, too familiar, and too emotionally connected to it in a negative way to appreciate it for what it was.
Pain and insecurity are both still woven into it for me, but I am starting to see what my mom saw in it, and what my beta readers saw, and what I saw in it those years ago when the idea for it first jolted me into writing it.
These characters will live. I’ve stopped creating cruel death scenarios for them and started to actually love them again. Their story will be told, and I’m hopeful it’ll be everything my mom believed it could be.
For mom, whose love is intricately threaded through it. For mom, who is always, always in my heart.
