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.

Sneak Peek: HOLD ON FOREVER

The new novel is progressing and I'm getting that familiar feeling of excitement and anticipation as the story starts to come together and take off. The hope is to have it ready by the end of May, so I'm really going to have to make the most of my writing time. So, to cut this short, I'm giving you a fun little snippet of HOLD ON FOREVER.

To set up the scene, Mark has accidentally broken Riley's front door knob and is going to get a new one. Riley is concerned that the new knob matches the style of the home. Enjoy!

Without batting an eyelash, she asked, “Who is the designer credited for Americanizing the Craftsman style?”

He blinked.

She took advantage of his silence. “Gustav Stickley. 1856 to 1942. Furniture designer and architect. See that rocking chair over there?”

He glanced at an old square rocker in the corner next to the fireplace. Oak.

“It’s a Stickley,” she said. “Someone was throwing it out! You don’t throw out an old Stickley just because it’s a little beat up. You bring it home and polish it up and put it in a Craftsman style home that maybe you’re only renting but would someday like to buy if you finally decide to stay in one place longer than twelve months, that’s what you do.”

He blinked again. “Would you . . . like to come help pick it out?” She was out of her freaking mind.

She marched over to the front door and swung it shut. It bounced, shuddered, and slowly swung open again. “Somebody broke my front door. I have to stay and protect the Stickley, among other things.”

He rubbed his face. This was not the morning he had planned. He glanced around the room. “With your baseball bat?”

She gave him a hard look, but only said, “Send me a pic from the store.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m not your mother.”

He covered a smile. “No, ma’am.”

She growled and put her hands on her hips. “You’ll need my number.”

“Yes I will. Riley.”

She paused, looking up at him. In that brief moment, with the banter stopped, he found it hard to breathe. Then just like that, Riley Madigan was standing close to him, her hair threatening to poke him in the eye, putting her phone number into his phone.

She gave it back to him, and he detected a little shake in her hand. “There. I didn’t mean to be so bossy. I tend to go a little nuts over old things.” She looked up at him, her freckles clear now in the light streaming through the window. “I’m sorry.”

“Your eyes are the color of moss you see in the woods,” he said. “It’s a cool, soothing color.”

She blinked and looked away, now her cheeks blushing pink.

“It’s deceiving,” he said. “You’re not very soothing at all.”

He watched her eyes open wide.

“You . . .”

He chuckled and made for the door.

“You . . .” she repeated.

He waved goodbye and made it off the porch.

“You . . . are no Gustav Stickley!” she called from the open door.