Just Wait

I can't believe it's been two years since I've posted. Well, yes I can. A lot has happened since then, sadly not much of it has been writing. I've battled multiple surgeries (me:4, husband:1, daughter:2) and chronic illness, among other things. The toll on my writing groove was high. I say "was" because I'm climbing out of it and will have my groove back in full swing. It feels great. Super great. But it's been a very long time.

I was able to do a few things while in battle. I taught at Storymakers and was asked back again this year. I wrote my first historical romance when I was invited to contribute to this lovely anthology:

Isn't it beautiful? My story is Christmas at Canterwood. All the stories are a treasure.

I truly enjoyed writing this story and have been asked to write another Regency due this summer. More research!

I rewrote and finished a contemporary romance I had shelved (Hold On Forever), and just submitted it to my publisher two weeks ago. I'll learn within a couple of months if they like it or not. Guys, this was HUGE. I honestly questioned whether or not I had it in me anymore. I guess I do. Watch for more news on that.

AND my friend, Suzanne Gale, urged me with all the urging of an accountability partner bestie who thinks she knows what's best for me (and she usually does) to apply for the Writing Excuses Writing Retreat CRUISE scholarship. Putting the packet together alone was good for me. I almost didn't do it. So much bad was happening in life, on top of the physical pain. Nonetheless, Suzy persisted. Writing the personal essay was healing. Gathering the letters of recommendation from friends was assuring. Choosing my writing samples was hard, but it forced me to take a look at words I'd written and remember that I'd done this before, this writing thing, and I was pretty good at it.

If you follow me on IG (kristalynnej), you know the basic, miraculous, I'm-still-in-shock outcome of that application. Here are the mini-story graphics I made to share it.

Hello?! I'm going on a WRITING CRUISE. I'll be saying that a lot between now and September.

I also thought I'd post my Personal Essay here. I'm a little scared to do that, because, hey, it's personal, heh. But it's also my writing. And apparently it's good writing. And this is my writing blog.
So here. With love.

I drowned once. At least, I should have. I was almost three years old and remember it like looking through dimpled glass. Or maybe water.

Our apartment complex had a swimming pool. In Renton, Washington where it rained and rained, we had a swimming pool. The sun did come out, though, and the pool filled with tenants, noisy, joyful. My mom found an open lounge chair and settled herself with a towel and a magazine. I had a cup.

I don’t know if the cup was mine or if I’d found it lying somewhere and had claimed it, but I crouched at the edge of the pool, surrounded by splashing and shouts and laughter, and gripped it with both hands, dipped it in the water, poured it out, dipped it again. Watching water fill and pour in the sunlight.

At the deep end.

A boy came, not much older than I was, ripped the cup from my hands and pushed me in.

I remember the small gasp of air and surprise I took before hitting tepid water and slipping beneath. I remember not struggling. Surely someone saw me. Surely my mom, or the legs kicking around me attached to people, surely someone saw. The boy would tell someone.

But I floated midway between top and bottom, looking. Hoping. Sinking in muted sound and blue.

Fear blossomed—a feeling, a knowledge that being invisible here meant danger, and no one saw me.

A kick. A panic.

Wait, I heard. Just wait.

My eyes were drawn to the shallow end across the pool. A splash of bubbles exploded beneath the surface and emerging from them, a woman with long, dark hair trailing behind her like a mermaid swimming toward me.

I recognized her. She lived on my floor. Her waist-long brown hair was always worn down and shiny, and she smiled at me whenever she saw me in the hall as I hid behind my mom’s legs.

She swam straight for me. Between half-submerged bodies and surface-swimmers across the length of the pool. Straight for me.

Wait. Just wait.

As she neared, I reached my arms out to her. She reached back, folding her own around my body and pushing me up, up, out of the water and to the ledge where hands grabbed me and pulled me and placed me with my mom who squeezed and squeezed and squeezed me.

I don’t remember coughing or choking or crying. Just blinking water from my eyes. The story is I fell asleep within minutes.

I’m asking myself why I’ve shared this memory as part of my essay. It came to mind when you asked, “What makes you unique?” I’ve had other brushes with death. But this memory—this is my first memory. Of life.

Over the past five years my family and I have been hit by wave after wave, breakers of trial pushing us under, and as we swim up, reach the surface, think we can grab a breath, another crashing blow hits and under we go again. And through all of this, I nearly lost my writing. I could not escape physical pain far enough into my imagination, could not write romance when pummeled by pornography and infidelity, could not face making up conflict when so much already filled my reality, could not write happy endings when I wasn’t sure they existed. Injury. Illness. Addiction. Loss. Death. I would stare at my laptop screen. After four published novels, three published novellas, and five more unpublished novels in nine years, my passion was drowning in fear. My words.

Wait, I kept hearing. Just wait.

And one morning only a few weeks ago I woke up, ideas like bubbles rising around me in water. Words came like arms around me, pushing me up and I don’t know what will happen and I still fear the next wave, and I’m still in pain, but my words are coming.

And in considering this memory and what it means to me, and what it means to this essay and this entry and the writing still inside me, maybe it is this:

We are not meant to be invisible here.

Go On. Go, Throw Up.

The title of this post is taken from the gag reel of Disney Pixar's Monsters, Inc. I thought it appropriate. I just hit the send button and submitted Grace & Chocolate to my editor. And yes, after I did it I looked over the first few pages of the ms and found a couple small needed edits. NEVER FAILS. I'm not freaking out, though, like I did the first few times I submitted a novel. It's still a darn clean edit. But the anticipation, the hoping, the hand-wringing agony begins.

Time to start something new to take my mind off it. A little bit, anyway.

For a peek at Grace & Chocolate and a chance to listen to the awesome soundtrack, click HERE.

Hope you enjoy it!

Just Offstage

After revisions, Grace & Chocolate is out to readers. Again. I've completed the author forms required for submission to my publisher. So, after feedback and the necessary improvements (one hopes they are improvements), I will submit G&C to my editor and then . . . wait. Again.
It is strange to have two books waiting in the wings, approved, anticipating makeup and costume. They know their lines and have the potential to deliver their parts with emotion, timing, and humor.
But it's not their turn yet, and here I send another player in for auditions before the others have been proven. They keep glancing back at me as they watch the performance of other stories, and I have to put my hands up and settle them. Just wait, I whisper. Just wait.

What's Your Pain Threshold?

 Criticism is something we can avoid simply by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. ~Aristotle

I was doing a little blog-hopping-- only a little because I've spent every ounce of energy I have and my bed is calling me... "Kristaaaaaa, Kristaaaaaa, I'm warm and deep with three inches of memory foam softnessssss..."
*sigh*
What was I doing? Oh yeah, the blog.

I saw the wonderful ladies at Writing on the Wall had a new post here. Julie Wright shared her thoughts on the pain of critique and bearing it better if we took some pain meds beforehand, or, actually, maybe we would submit more if we knew it wouldn't hurt so much. It's a sweet boost, so go read it. But come back here.

Because I was thinking about pain and what it can do. Paralyze us? Make us grit our teeth and bear it?

About 16 1/2 years ago a car going 65 mph hit my stopped car from behind. Didn't see us at all. Mine and my baby's survival was a miracle. Because of her car seat, my little girl was frightened, but perfect. I walked away, however, with severe muscle tissue damage in my lower back. I'm in some level of pain every hour of every day. People compliment me on my excellent posture. The truth is, if I slouch, the pain meter spikes quickly. I try to avoid that.

It's like walking around with a knife stuck in my back. When it gets worse, someone is twisting the knife. Every hour of every day. I fought depression. I won.

Then a few years later, my marriage nearly fell apart.

We sucked it up. We made it through. We fell in love again.

And then we lost a child. 

It's a risk, as writers, putting ourselves out there. It could hurt. It could help. Use what's given, find what works, make the changes, meet halfway, follow your gut, scrap the rest.

I keep submitting, because critiques and rejections are tough, but I know some things hurt more.

I can handle it. So can you.

Tuesday Testimonial: Patience

“Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things - with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope.” -Corazon Aquino

 In lieu of Tuesday Edit Crunch (because until I hear back about my second book I am stumped about what to cover next), I will be sharing Tuesday Testimonial! And, as I have already hinted, this first testimonial will address a subject I have recently declared the possible crown of all submitting authors:

PATIENCE

If you look at it long enough it starts to look foreign, doesn't it? Like some french word for an amazingly rich pastry in a paper doily. Mmm... pastry.

Chocolate sauce, anyone?

Am I right, though? It is not enough to "open a vein" and pour ourselves out onto paper (or screen), then take a deep breath and push a creation out for others, and not just any others, but those whose job it is to judge it, and then... wait. And wonder, and clean our desk and go through the motions and make wrong turns and space out during conversations and start to say things like, "Oh, that is Dierdre's favorite song," or, "Galahad went through a very similar experience," and you're referring to your main characters so people look at you funny. Waiting. Cuckoo.
No, it's not enough. My favorite part of the above quote are the words, with resignations. It's the phrase that makes the rest of it, the blazing, serene hope, human. I can do that. I have resignations. But I think my hope is pretty blazing, if not entirely serene (eye twitch).

The manifestation of my blazing, serene hope, is that I am still writing. I am still going back and editing my brains out for stories I have yet to submit and have no idea how they will be received. I am on the lookout for the next story. It is in how I allow a moment to envision my book in my hands, the weight of it, what the cover might look like, how I might avoid the reviews, and how I might not, how the story might touch others. And the next story. And the next.
I told my writing group, "Anyone who wants to learn patience, write a book, and submit it." I'll add to it. 
Anyone who wants to learn of faith, keep writing.


Are you up for the lesson?

Seeing Where I Went.... Uh-Oh.

"Practice, practice, practice writing. Writing is a craft that requires both talent and acquired skills. You learn by doing, by making mistakes and then seeing where you went wrong." -Jeffrey Carver

I had read it through. I had cut and trimmed and re-worked and tightened. I listened carefully to ideas and suggestions. When I thought it was ready, I sent it in. Two days later... I began reading through it again.
Word left out. Sentence unfinished. Could have said that better. Ummm, punctuation? It gradually got better, fluid, tight. But, they read the first part... first. I hope they muddle through, see that it gets better, cleaner.
Next time.... I am reading it again after I think it is perfect.
Then maybe waiting to hear from them won't be quite as excruciating.