The blog of fantasy fiction author and writer Tarah L. Wolff

…to more than they are meant

I haven’t yet found a place yet where I know I will survive. I wrote beside my computer so many months ago, “I tell you, Baby, this wound is so heavy.” And it’s true. Carrying it around is my constantly having to live too close to tears. I think I’m feeling better but I’m lying to myself. Summer is falling away from me and it’s all so god damned sad. I’ve lost faith in everything. We’ve lost the golf course. If we do not sell in early October the bank will start forclosure proceedings.

We played our end of the year tournament today and I sit here aching from 27 holes played. Burning from 40 mile an hour gusts of wind and chilled to the bone in exhaustion. When was the last time I slept well? I remember one day, not too long ago, the first day in a really long time where I had finally drove my body to the point where not even me, in my current emotional state, could keep myself from sleeping. It’s been a long time, and it will be a long time more before I truly sleep again. I can smell autumn. It was the last end of the year tournament, the last summer. And I hate myself.

I hate myself because I missed so much time here of the last five years for him. Now it’s all gone. And I can still hear him ranting on how I should have moved down there to help finish the house for him. Help him, like I should have. And, I suppose, married him and had his children. Been that girl, like I should have. How much could he possibly hate me for saying such a thing to me? I ache with the time I missed here. I ache with the hours, the days, the weeks, the months that I will never get back. And he wanted more.

Thank God I never gave him more.

My Grandma told me, “Men never move for women.” How true she was. Imagine if I had given more. I can’t really, not truly, I have felt as though I gave more than I had for so long. So much so that now I feel infinitely thread-bare, desperate for a reprieve (anything, anything at all) and so fucking tired. But if I had given more, whole years for him so he could have been happier, so he could have had more help (never mind that I never got any) I know that he still never would have moved for me. And imagine how much more the fool I would have felt now.

And he still says, “Wish I was there. I miss you so much. I really miss you.” and I wonder if he could possibly know how spiteful that is. How inconsiderate and how unbearably cruel he is being. In the end though, it’s on me, I’m still talking to him, I’m still listening because I simply have nothing else. I’m not holding on to him because I want to. I’m not talking to him still because I want to, God knows he’s burned himself to me, I’m still talking to him because I have nothing else left and no one else left to hang on to.

He said, “Ya know, if you wanted to come down here I wouldn’t mind if you stayed with me.” Oh my God. How can’t he see the knife he’s twisting? He says, “I wish I was there” and I think of how he had destroyed this wonderful place with words, cut me so deep, told me he never wanted to be here. He says, “I miss you.” and I remember him telling me how it’s been four months (like I’m holding on and he’s over it). He says he wouldn’t mind having me around and I remember how he used to tell me he wanted me all of the time. I want to tell him, “Ya know, Fucker, I really think I could find someone who might actually WANT me around that I don’t need to lower myself to sleeping on the couch of someone who would think it would be all right. As if you would allow me to come follow you around. At least I’m not as pathetic as YOU seem to think I am.”

But I’m too tired to fight anymore. All fighting means is how he’s going to give me the schpeal he gives himself every morning so he can move on about how this is for the best. And how we’re moving in different directions. And how I’m going to be better off. And how he’s right. And I can’t bare to hear it again. All I want to say is, “Moving in different directions, huh? As far as I can tell, you’re going nowhere and I’m sprinting with two broken legs at a stand still.”

I say nothing and I try not to cry over all of this. We’ve lost so much. I want to tell you it all. Everything about other people in our lives, people we thought we could trust. People we thought were family who did such awful things until we were alone and shaking and bleeding. My mom keeps telling me that, “This is when our lives begin. We must sell the golf course first, then the divorce and then I’m as free as you. You’re free, Baby.” But I’m not, and she knows it. And I am nothing if I am not free.

I have one thing. The one and only constant in my entire life. My book. Embraced by Darkness remains my only hope. The only thing that still gives me faith in one thing: one very small aspect of myself. I am a writer and I need to learn how to need nothing else if I am ever going to find peace again. Not happiness, I can’t even remember that anymore, just peace. A place in my life where I am capable of sleeping.

Well, I’m home. Just got here a couple of hours ago. I left yesterday and I remain in awe at how time is and how we remember it. I left 3pm yesterday, a long time, but only a blink, the drive is just a blur and it feels like I’m just pulling away from our house. Eleven hundred miles and none at all. I hate the way we remember things. I hate so many things right now that I can barely breathe. I have a lot to be glad about, a lot to be thankful for. But yesterday was the worst day of my life. Too many people I will never see again. Too many tears that were so deep I had to pull over because I simply lost the ability to breathe. I wanted nothing more than to turn around after I left and go back to our house.

This is a memory I will always keep and it will always be held in the fist of the shocking, oppressive heat that has been clutching Oklahoma for the past week. When I think of driving away the last time, it will be entirely soaked in sweat. When I think of signing the papers for my house to go on the market, it will be with the sun blaring down, becoming an intruder that feels like it’s trying to kill me. When I kissed Joseph for the last time, it will be with the salty taste of sweat, covering the taste of our tears.

Five years of my life, my “home”, all gone in a heart beat. It’s funny how, as a writer, I am a realistic, insightful, absurdly creative person, yet I never imagined it would be like this. I had no idea, no way to prepare myself. I am used to being prepared. I am never blindsided. Never played the fool. Yet here I am. Feeling like a fool.

Sharon has my book (see, look at how easy I changed the subject and pity me at how quickly I go back to it) she wrote me an email two days ago saying how she can’t read my monster right before bed at night because she ends up having the craziest dreams and getting no rest at all. I’m actually smiling at that. I told her, “You wonder why I’m an insomniac I’ve got that stuff going through my head twenty-four hours a day!” Of course that’s not true.

The truth is my books are my only real distraction. Driving up I suddenly realized an important piece of dialogue that I want in my sequel. Funny how even through all of this there is always a piece of my brain working on one of my books all of the time. No matter what. Suddenly the sweat shop gals who are working so silently hard on my book, in a windowless corner of my brain, pipe up  and say, “We’ve got something, check it out!”

What keeps me up at night is not my imagination but always my heart. Regret. Anger. Grief. This is what keeps me up at night. In that order. I am a writer. I feel too much. Too hard. Too fast. And, as my mother puts it, I am absurdly loyal. I simply am not emotionally capable of leaving someone behind. I’ve had to do it for five years in this long distance relationship, time and time again. And, yesterday, permanently. It just doesn’t work in my brain. I don’t understand how to go on having left someone behind me. I literally just do not know what to do. I am sick with grief. I am upset beyond words. There is an entire continent within me that lies in shock at the mere fathom of trying to move on having left without him. I always wanted to take him with me, with or without our relationship; or kids; or marriage; or any of that fucking bull shit. I just couldn’t leave someone I loved behind.

His choice. Yeah, I know. Say it again for me, it hasn’t sunk in yet, maybe it will this time. He wants you to leave him alone so he can move on and find misses-fucking-better-than-you. You know this. Yes, I know this. Say again. Yes, I know this, and I know I deserve better than not to move on right at this moment. But, ya know, that continent inside of me that doesn’t know what the fuck to do now, that is actually lying quivering on the floor in shock? So? How can you say so? That continent is the majority of my emotions. So? Fuck you. That’s not very nice, right now you’re actually having an argument with yourself, if he doesn’t want you, if he wants so badly for you to abandon him (the chick that anybody would want on their team) then why don’t you? Why don’t you just give him what he wants? I don’t want him to get hurt, he’s a sweetheart, he’s had it rough; he’s my best friend; he has the worst luck in the world and I don’t want him to be alone. He can always call you, God knows you’ll always pick up the phone and be there for him. It’s not the same, you remember. Yeah, I know what you said to him when you held his head against your heart, you said, “This is where I will always keep you.” Nothing is stopping you from that. But it’s where he belongs. Than, if that’s true, he’ll learn that the hard way. I don’t want him to have to, I understand the hard way now; it’s no way to live. Well, there isn’t a part of you, not even this one, that can blame you for that. But you know that that is not how it’s going to happen. Yeah, I know, he’ll find somebody. Sure he will, but you can still keep him there, the him that was then, the him that you once had, you can remember that Joseph even after he forgets. I can’t even handle the consideration of knowing that that is all I have left. I just can’t do that yet. You will with time. I know, I hate time. Everyone does.

Yeah, I got that inner dialogue typed all the way out didn’t I? Today, six hours from home (after a terrible night trying to sleep) I almost fell asleep at the wheel. I went to a gas station and bought what I could to get home. I drank a five hour energy, washed it down with a red bull, took three ibuprofen, washed them down with a red bull and then lit a cigarette. I was able to keep going, I was able to get home. Everything looks like it’s missing something. But I did get home. If I can do that, I can still get up tomorrow, at least. One step at a time, right?

It’s been a while since I posted (yet again). I am trying to get my feet back under me from the blows of the last two weeks. I’m still walking around through some kind of fog that’s impossible to explain but we all know what it feels like. No matter how I justify everything in my head, no matter how this is even kind of a release, I am very depressed. I’m capable of getting to work on time, doing what I need to do. But, Guitar Hero? Golf? All I want to do is sit and lick this wound. It’s just too heavy to carry around when I don’t have to be doing anything.

The worst thing that happened to be in this recovery stage was that the very first weekend (during the time I wrote my last blog entry) I finished my book. Cheers, right? Woohoo. Oh yeah, yay. But, now I don’t have anything else to do. I’m so desperate I’m starting to shift my focus to the sequel. I need something so badly so I can have an escape from myself, my book was the very best thing.

I’ve already spoken to my aunt about all of it and she’s planning on starting the “on the computer line edit” of my book as soon as we finish The Talking Stick and Richard’s Sedarstrom’s second poetry book. I don’t know if I don’t you about him yet but he’s a fantastic retired professor who is, at this very moment, my favorite person to work for. What’s great about Richard is that his writing is so unbelievably clean that Sharon should have the book ready for publication within less than a week. So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’ll be able to start my book in no more than three weeks.

The golf course has opened, I don’t know about you but we’ve noticed that this is three weeks earlier and about thirty degrees warmer than any spring that I can remember. So, yay, an extra month of golf this year. I’ve golfed three times and I can’t tell you how good it felt and how good it was for me. Being in the club house has been healing. So many people who remember me, so many guys who are happy to see me. Makes a girl feel a little more than nothing. I needed that.

So, my book is almost there and I feel good about it. I’m biting my nails. The house, down south, is almost finished and should be on the market by August. I do plan on going back for a couple of weeks for the last finishing push but, for right now, I’m going to cross that bridge when I come to it and not think about that trip yet. Right now it’s just one day at a time for me. Thank God for a job to go to everyday and a mom and three dogs that love me without bounds. Even my brother has given me many hugs these past two weeks.

The worst blow was after Joseph left me, I tried to put a nail all the way through the bottom of my foot and then, about a week after that, my mom and I were testing golf cart batteries. We had already gone through almost half of our electric golf carts and I was leaning over the whole rack of 6, 6 volt batteries and I saw the spark. BOOM. The center battery blew up right in my face. The whole thing fucking detonated. I hit the ground, my face covered, my eyes and all of my exposed skin felt like I was on fire. I was convinced I’d lost the eye sight in my right eye, deformed for life. The thing had already swollen to the size of a golf ball. My mom grabbed me, flagged my brother down and they took turns dousing my face and eyes out of water. Then she and I both ran home and took showers to get the battery acid off of us.

To say the least I was a real girl about the whole thing. A couple golfer friends of my saw it happen and offered me two shots of Root Beer Schnapps, from there I smoke four cigarettes and simply sat there shaking for two hours. Never in my life could I have imagined that could happen, but of course, it would happen to me during the worst week of my life. Everyone tells me bad things come in threes so I guess I’m done for the year. We’ll see, I’m certainly not going to say out loud, “It couldn’t get worse! Things have to get better!” Because I’ve been saying that for five years and somehow it has always gotten worse.

So I am one beaten and battered chick, hobbling around with a bad foot and a shiner on my right eye that has taken on every conceivable color of the rainbow. Whatever part of the battery that hit my eye it was about a quarter of an inch higher than hitting my eyeball. I should be thankful, I flinched the right way, no permanent damage. And, God knows, what a hell of a story to tell anyone who asks what happened to my face. But it should heal without scarring and it’s already better. Besides all of that you know about my heavy wound I’m trying to carry around with me.

They say we right from wounds. Maybe this will improve my writing. I don’t think so. I’ll let you know as soon as I start in on the sequel again. Lots of ideas! The other the day I wrote three post-its worth of notes; the final finishing of the base outline for the second book. Wow.

Billy Collins is coming to Bemidji Minnesota this September!! WooHoo!

I am sooo excited. If you haven’t yet seen them on youtube you need to go watch These By Billy Collins. There are many to see/hear and they are absolutely incredible. I can’t wait to hear him live. And, is it just me or does he sound like Kevin Spacey when he played the serial killer in Seven? And doesn’t that just add another awesome element of dimension or what!

Stage two of The Talking Stick

Everything is in a digital file. Poetry, Creative nonfiction and fiction. There is no more scanning or typing to do (Thank God). Sharon has gone through the digital file and made as many corrections as she can there. The judges have already returned to us the first and second place finishers in all three categories. All that was left to do last Sunday night was for me to sit down and figure out how the book is going to read, which poem goes where, which story goes where. Made all the more difficult that we want to start everything that goes on to more than one page on a right hand page.

It took me four hours.

Not even kidding. Four hours. I started at 11pm and ended up still sitting there at 3am. It was the hardest book I have yet to put together in my life. It is strictly because of our standards of excellence and the fact that we’re getting more and more writing every year. That all translates into “less filler for the book.” Less easy going and blah poetry about nothing etc. We encourage and published clear-voiced pieces that are well described, as short/cut/tight as possible. And we love stuff that ends with a clear message. No, I don’t mean “Kill Hitler!” what I mean by a clear message is that there is a beginning, a middle and an end that translates into something, anything. An emotion, an idea, anything, anything at all without the writer TELLING IT TO US.

And that translates into . . .

A book that was damn hard to put together. I mean, my God, I’m not going to be caught putting a poem about baby’s dying across from a creative nonfiction that is a humorous slant on cabin life. Hell no. Everything this year was clear and imrpessive, but that means everything this year had to be very carefully handled. What a job!

But what a great job to have! I can’t believe I’m saying the quality of the work was so good it actually made my job harder. lol. What a great problem to have.

There was bad too though.

Don’t get me wrong. There is always truly horrible writing that I remain sitting with my mouth open while reading it wondering why the hell the writer thought anyone would want to read it. Half of the creative nonfiction submitted this year I crossed off (with red ink) at least the first and the last paragraphs. Simply put I eliminated the stupid back story that should start NO story (if back story is necessary and, it really shouldn’t be with a word limit of 1,000, then it should only be brought it when its relevant to the action.) and then I eliminated the part when the writer decided to tell us what we learned because of course all readers (especially editors) are too stupid to get it.

What writers don’t seem to understand.

I can imagine them. Flaunting along in tied died t-shirts in their minds as they expand their horizons and click off the editor and slip into that creative bliss where everything is genius. And then they write words that absolutely ooze like honey, thing like, “Expanded into/Void of oppressive/Convulsed noise/Weeping . . . Weeping . . . Weeping/Dreams shattered/A blink and I knew/I was alive!” Wow, really? This is the best you can do? What the hell did that even fucking mean? And, for that matter, who ever said that I cared about whether or not you felt alive? Do you understand that I don’t care? I couldn’t care less actually. You’re job as a writer is to make me give a fuck. Figure it out.

The number one rule that most “hobby” writers don’t seem to get is that writing is half creative process and half intellectual work. It seems they all throw out their brain, their working common sense, for this lofty bull shit hope that you can become a writer by writing what you think is poetic.

Most people who sit down to write a “poem” are always lacking the most important thing. Heart.

The impressive pieces, every one of them, start by the writer being inspired by an emotion. From there, not all writers create anything that’s worth reading (I can’t tell you how many pieces that we don’t put in the book but they had a great idea) the inspiration is the most creative part of it all and it does not create something worth reading. Your intellectual self, your ability to step back and allow that story to shine (or that feeling, that emotion) without ever telling us how to think, is how good writing begins. It takes clear thinking and an absolutely hated eye to get a piece cut down to the only words that matter. Very few things that I’ve read have ever reached this point of brilliant tightness and almost no creative nonfiction that I’ve seen has ever achieved this.

The ability to step back and clearly assess your own writing.

You need to be objective. So often I hear “I wrote it for a class” and I think, “Wow that must be an exciting read!” The basis of your work must be a seed that inspires you. You must have a clear and present knowing of what you are trying to achieve when you’re writing that piece. If you’re not excited about it, God knows, no reader will ever be.

I had my writers’ meeting today. It’s always so strange trying to tell people about my book. Even other writers. . . Maybe especially other writers. They hear the massive amount of numbers, the hours and hours of work, which I barely describe because I don’t want to sound like I’m gloating, and they seem to assume that it must not be much. Nobody has said that, nobody has said much of anything accept polite things, they are supportive, but it is the little they say that makes it hard. But, I think, what could they say? I mean, if someone came up to me and talked about such a massive writing project (and I hadn’t done something like Embraced by Darkness) I don’t think I would be that impressed either. I really think that I would probably not think very much it would be a, “Oh wow, that’s great! Good luck!” But I would be thinking that it is most likely crap, probably 99.9% likely to be crap.

Now, if it were something different. Something shorter, something about a girl my age, something safe; now that would make more sense. That would definitely be more in the realm of getting good responses, better encouragement. Now that would be something people could wrap their head around.

Now, I started this blog for me and for anyone who might want to know what it was like toiling through Embraced by Darkness. But I really don’t think I’ve gotten that done yet. I think you would read through my posts, get a glimpse of my every day life, and that would be cool if you didn’t know me but liked my book. And, you would get a bit of a glimpse of how this last push through Embraced by Darkness was like. You know, it’s about doubt. That’s obvious. That is number one. But if I asked you, “What was it like?” What would you say? I don’t think you would know. Not really.

So, what was it like?

And maybe that’s the point, isn’t it? I have so much trouble putting it into words. I would tell you that working on Embraced by Darkness was work. A lot of work. The great, fun, creative part of stretching and writing is such a small part of the real writing process. If you want to become a truly spectacular writer, so little of it is actual writing. So much of it is intellectual problem solving (ya know, the other part of your brain.) But that’s just the mechanics of it all. My personal experience with Embraced by Darkness was very hard but something so satisfying and challenging that I wish I could devote my life to being a writer.

But I have kept my day job. A girl’s gotta eat.

That is the most frustrating thing. Going back to being a writer, to being the writer/worker of Embraced by Darkness, has been the hardest part for me. From worrying about food, money, hell whether I can afford to even get my hair cut, finishing that next web project and, then trying to devote all of myself to my book without distraction, is some weeks, just not possible. All writers will already know this part so I am dottling again but I need you to know that besides the doubt there was always the essential frustration that I was never working on my book enough. Never going back to it enough and always wishing I was there, working on it, above all other things. So rarely did I get the opportunity where I was motivated, not trashed from the rest of the day, not exhausted from the rest of the week and with the time, to work on it.

You’re a writer. You know that time can be made.

Especially if a writer is willing to sacrifice sleep, tv and downtime. Writing had to become my obsession. Embraced by Darkness could not be work to me no matter how much it felt like work, it had to be the thing I wanted to be doing, not matter what. That was damned hard.

Especially so close to the end.

Like I am right now. So close. So few hours left for that last push. I am frustrated because I haven’t touched it for three weeks. I am hesitant because I’m afraid I’m wrong, that the book requires more work than that and I just can’t bare that consideration yet. The very idea of such a gut wrenching disappointment as it being farther from done than I think it is. Is absolutely unbearable. That’s just how it is and how it’s always going to be.

It’s in my very make up to expect the worse, to understand perfectly that my book will never be good enough. Will never be done. No matter how hard I work it is in my nature to never expect my work to be good enough.

Doubt.

So, you know about doubt. But what I haven’t told you is that the characters of this book, and the other books I’m working on, are with me always. I am often thinking of them. I rarely go a day without them. Right now, I’m working on Embraced by Darkness and, I swear to God, I see a flip of Osondrous’ blond hair out of the corner of my eye sometimes. I can almost hear what Karalay sounds like. And they come to me often and so randomly. The book I’m working on becomes a large portion of my life that no one knows about. No one could fathom the amount of time that I’ve spent with them, outside of working on the book. No one knows.

Embraced by Darkness has been my absolute satisfaction. I have taken such incredible pride and joy in working on this story. Their story. I feel privileged to have been a part of this incredible thing. No matter if anyone reads it. It doesn’t matter. I feel like I was the one chosen to write this story, to take upon this incredible undertaking, and I am very proud of that. I hope when people do read this book, if that ever happens, that they will feel that extent of respect. I feel as though the refugees of this time came to me and asked me to write their story. As terrified as I am of doing it unflinchingly and with great awareness as to their incredible strength, I know it must be written and I am the only one that this story was told to.

My mom flew down to Oklahoma for a few days and we just drove home. Miss Joseph terribly already and missed out (by only 2 days) the laying of brand new carpet throughout the majority of our house. It sucks royally, we’ve worked on that house for 3 1/2 years and that carpet was a true turning point of the finishing of the whole thing. Tough not to see it when it first went in, but I’ll live. To add insult to injury I don’t know if you’ve been around the midwest at all the past week, or even watched the news but the entirety of the midwest was hit, all of a sudden like (no one forecasted it), by a gigantic, slow, north moving storm. So, I got to drive through the whole fucking thing. 1,100 miles, 18 hours of hydroplaning and gripping the wheel like I was going to save our lives. I’m still totally exhausted two days later.

To add Insult to Injury (again)

We’ve been having some hard times in Oklahoma. We’ve been betrayed and back stabbed by someone we thought was our friend. We have been receiving threats to such an extent that I am a heart beat away from calling the police and filing a report. Joseph has bought himself a gun and has a conceal and carry license. We both live a little bit now in wait for the final conclusion to this whole thing. You may notice that I don’t sound scared. I’ve learned well in my life that the louder the asshole is and the worse the lies he claims: the bigger the pussy he actually is. And, in this case, that’s absolutely correct. Joseph and I are both waiting for him to back up his threats but neither of us expect him to ever have the balls to do it. The threats stopped for a while but the moment I left my house to drive back north he started in on threatening Joseph again.

Really? Scared of a girl, huh?

Well, I don’t blame him, if I was him, after everything that he’s said about me, I would be scared of me too. He’s attacked everything about our lives, our jobs, even our house and our loyalty to each other. He claims that our lives are horrible and that he’s amazingly happy. That he has an incredible job where he’s making a fortune compared to our measly salaries. That his house is worth twice what ours is and that includes everything that he owns, right down to his cars and his wife and child. Joseph and I are looking at each other and we have to laugh. Because if we’re so poor and our lives are so horrible when we’re actually making more money than he is, our cars are worth more, our house is worth more (and I’m not even going to get into the asshole’s excessive drug and alcohol abuse) and we have such a great relationship that we actually trust each other. Isn’t he actually saying then that our worst is not even the best that he can do? I guess it’s a good thing that he’s happy then. It’s unbelievably sad and I’ve never pitied anyone more. When we don’t reply, he thinks he’s won and we haven’t truly replied yet, not like we could. He may want to hurt us, but we can’t be so cruel as to rub our incredible fortune in finding each other into his face. I want to be that bitch but I’m just not. So Joseph and I bite our tongues and hope he’s not stupid enough to force us to pull the trigger.

So here is a toast to every lying piece of shit trailer trash that you were ever stupid enough to trust. Take it from me, if there is a creature like this in your life, arm yourself and sleep well, because everybody else knows that they’re lying dog shit too. Regardless of what they say about you. And we all know that people that deserve something wicked coming to them, always get it in the end. Get as far away as you can, because assholes like that tend to pass what they have coming right on to everything around them, especially their friends and the people that they love.

Not great for work on the book though.

Nope, been too damned busy for work on the book. I have several folks I’ve contacted through Deviantart now that are awaiting my reply about their doing a commission. But, I know the only way the commission could ever be done is if they read the book first and it’s just not ready yet! Damnit! I need to work on it and I have the changes at my left elbow just waiting for me. There actually aren’t a lot, no more than a few hours of work (and you know by now that a few hours of work for me on this beast is literally nothing in comparison to how much time I’ve already spent). But I’m just still so shot from the drive and I want a cigarette too because I feel like shit even though I’m not a smoker. (Boyfriend’s a smoker, sometimes it’s hard not to have one too.)  On top of all that I have one HUGE weekend coming up.

I gotta pay the bills somehow and I’m meeting some folks I did a website design for to show them how to use it etc. I think I’m becoming more and more of the a-typical writer. I do fine with people but I loathe gatherings; they exhaust me, and after that drive all I want to do is curl up at home for two weeks and accomplish absolutely nothing.

But I’m going to try after I write this!

I am going to work on my book at least a little today before my mom gets home from work. Tonight my aunt is coming over and we’re having my Minnesota birthday party after my golden birthday (turned 24 on the 24th of February) in Oklahoma. First time I was without my mom on my birthday, I love her and it was tougher than I thought it would be. Weird how when everything in your life either dies or changes how we revert back to the kids in us and just want our moms on our birthdays. I certainly did.

My aunt (Sharon), my mom (Marilyn), and I are all on the Editorial board for The Talking Stick again this year. Mom just as a substitute in case one of the other three people on the board can’t make it, or to be the deciding vote on something the five of us can’t agree on. It’s a good job and we all like it despite the massive amount of work. Over 160 writers submitted this year (most of them at least 3 things) and the stack of submissions looks like over a ream of paper. Insane and cool. After my birthday dinner and maybe some presents (lol, that’s a real joke, my family would never let anybody go without presents on their birthday, sometimes I feel like a spoiled brat, but then I remember.) we’re going to sit down and compare notes like we usually do before the big meeting when we decide what to put in the book. It helps refresh our memories on everything and think about what’s going to the judges this year too.

It’s a gigantic job but I like it every year and I’m always proud to be a part of it.

I started this blog entry the night before last, after I had spent several hours looking for scfi-fi/fantasy places to be published and I still had part 4 of my book to go through. I felt good and I was so enthused that I named the blog post “Actual Hope” though I got nothing else written in it. I found eight places (mostly magazines) that pay and accept scfi-fi/fantasy stories. I’m excited about it and have already sent off one of my short stories for consideration. I have plans to work on four more and get those sent off as soon as possible. I’ll be so excited if just one of them gets accepted. What’s really neat is that most of them urge for novel excerpts so I’m already working on pulling some stories out of The Death of Eliana and I’m working on the same for Embraced by Darkness. For some reason all of this has made me feel pretty good. I’ve also bought some cheap back issues of most of the places; research is a must.

Meanwhile I also found seven different scfi-fi and fantasy publishing companies that accept unsolicited submissions. Woot! Though I know the reaction I’m probably going to get from all of them. “Your book’s too damn long. We can’t publish anything over 120 thousand words.” Still, knowing that those publishing houses are out there, looking for books like I want to write, and being willing to take unagented submissions is pretty fucking awesome.

And I have been working on my book. I said in the beginning of this post that the night before last I was down to Part 4 – the end of the book. If you can believe it, I’m feeling pretty good about how the whole thing is reading. There was some doubt throughout the beginning of the book and, of course, I need to work on those places. But, last night, I finished it.

I finished the first complete read-through after putting my book back together!

Without a doubt, the last half of my book is a better read than the first half. I’m hoping I can cut even more but as it stands the book is now down to 173,052 from 236,743 when I started this last push a few months ago.  That’s sixty thousand words that I’ve managed to cut. My boyfriend has taken to teasing, “How much did you delete of all your hard work today? Did it go well?” And I’ll say, “Oh yeah, I just love slaughtering it!” But, the truth of the matter is, that I’m actually not deleting any real substance from the book. Any real writer will know that what I’m doing is just improving what’s already there.

I literally sit and think, “How can I say that in less words?”

The biggest hardship I ran into in this last read through is that, because Karalay’s story is shorter, things were happening for her way before they were spurred to happen for the other characters. I.E. Karalay was reacting to Osondrous becoming queen before she actually became queen. Now, I know a lot of books do that deliberately and there was a part of me that wanted to leave it because the book was so happy and organized as it was. But, I decided, that because of the scope and size of my book, I needed to help my readers out and keep my three characters as close to the same time line as I could. So I had to change my method in Part 1 of the book.

If you’ve been keeping up with my blog posts than you know that I decided to break the book into four parts and omit chapters all together. In each part of the book I ended up going from Osondrous to Karalay to Jezaline to Osondrous to Karalay to Jezaline and then moved on to the next part. But because of Karalay’s shorter story and the fact that she HAD to end my book and the fact that she was the main character in my Epilogue I decided to pull half of her story out of Part 1 and move all of her story down. So Part 1 is now going from Osondrous to  Jezaline to Osondrous to Karalay to Jezaline and then moving on to Part 2. See diagram. None of the other Parts have changed but I feel this was necessary and the fact of the matter is, no one reading the book is going to care or notice.

I want to cut more.

It’s painful and it’s true. I need to cut more and I want to cut more. There are two places in the book I hope I can slice more of it out, maybe not more than a few thousand words but if I can get the book down into the hundred and sixty thousand word area I think it will look better. Really anything shorter than it is now will look better to publishers.

But I’m not going to start cutting rashly. I’m going to read through it, one more time, and cut as I go. I hate to say it, and it does pain me quite a bit, but the truth of the matter is the places I’m thinking of cutting are out of Jezaline and Karalay’s stories which is pretty frustrating because Osondrous has the most words in the book. But, as I’m typing this I am thinking of a place in Osondrous’ story too that I noticed. When I read through it again I really hope I can cut them down without mercy and maybe “crosses fingers” even cut another ten thousand words out of the book.

So, wish me luck!