How writing a novel healed my heart

Steve’s been gone for almost three and a half years now.

The thought comes out of the blue, in the middle of revising a scene in my manuscript. I've had other losses since Steve; my aunt in February, my mother in March after years of watching her suffer.  It hurt to lose her but knowing her pain was gone made it easier, sort of.

Steve's death, though, still has the power to sneak up on me, knock me flat, and leave me breathless. His was unexpected, sudden, violent, and chosen by him. Suicide of a loved one may end that person's suffering but it just begins the pain for everyone else.

It’s been a busy month. My novel has to be ready for critique in the next week or so (clutches stomach) AND

I have two short stories to submit by the end of the month AND

I am participating in my first NaNoWriMo.  That starts 11/1 leaving me only ten days of prepping, outlining, reading more first-person POV books, because sure, why not try something I’ve never done under a nearly impossible deadline. 50,000 words in 30 days?!? Aaaaah!

I don't have time for this! Does it come back because his birthday is, or would have been, next week? I lean forward and play the saved messages on my answering machine and realize I haven’t played them in months. The horror of that day slaps me again but his cigarette-rough voice saying "I love you" reminds of better times.

Suddenly I miss him so much.  He was angry, funny, kind, thoughtful, thoughtless, a bully, an asshole, a loyal friend and partner.  All those things, and more, all at once. He drank too much, smoked too much, used too many drugs. He hung a plaque in the office quoting a friend that said, “There will be mixed feelings.” They had been talking about when he dies. He did have a wickedly twisted sense of humor. You either loved him or hated him. I loved him. Lots of people loved him. It didn't matter.

My eyes burn but I don’t cry. I can let the darkness swallow me up or not. It’s my choice. 

Wait, what now? It's my choice? When did that happen? It wasn’t always my choice but it is today and that's AMAZING to me. EPIPHANY-LEVEL AMAZING. I say to him in my mind “Dude, I don’t have time for this today. I’m EFFING BUSY.” He throws up the W he was so fond of because it always annoyed the shit out of me. “Whatever.”

Put the phone down, people. I know it's just my imagination. 

Steve nagged and pushed me to pursue writing. If he'd stuck around he’d be so proud that I completed a novel set at the farm that he, and I, loved so much. And maybe annoyed that it took me so long. He’s not in the book (and he’d be pissed about that. Why that makes me smile and say HA-HA in the voice of Nelson, the bully from the Simpsons, I don’t know).

Today I realize I'm happy - the pride is mine. I accomplished this wonderful thing with the support of my family and friends. I accomplished this despite Steve's absence. Writing this book, finishing it, and now revising it has healed me without me knowing it.

Yeah, I wrote a freaking book. Maybe it sucks balls, maybe it doesn't. Time will tell, I guess, when I'm ready to unleash it on the world. I wanted the readers to smile and laugh with my characters, worry with them during their adventures, breathe a sigh of relief at the Happy Ever After.

And clamor for the sequel, of course. Duh.

I guess my point is this - bad stuff happens.  Awful, dark, soul-draining, heart-wrenching things. We, the survivors, plod on, head down, one foot in front of the other until one day we realize we are skipping again.  Those awful, dark, soul-draining, heart-wrenching things are still with us; we just find the strength to carry them instead of dragging it behind us.

So I am taking this hour to be sad on a drizzly gray October day. I’ll write that dark story inside me someday but not today. I have a scene to finish revising and a short story to block...

WRITE ON

A football girl's dilemma

A FOOTBALL GIRL’S DILEMMA

Hooray!! BEARS WIN!  BEARS WIN!

I am a football girl (a long-time, long-suffering but ever hopeful diehard Bears fan) who cheered last night’s win over the Jets on Monday Night Football. GO BEARS!  

I am also a woman, a feminist even, horrified and disgusted by the Ray Rice video and the subsequent alleged cover up by the Ravens organization.  Rice isn’t the only batterer, of course.  He is just more famous because he played in the NFL. Perhaps only boxer Floyd Mayweather is more notorious now for his female-punching ways.

Yet I still watch football.  I’m conflicted, but I watch.  Other sports, like hockey (Go Hawks!), just don’t have this kind of swirling controversy, misogynistic or otherwise.  The NHL, though, is small potatoes compared to the behemoth NFL.

The recent NBC News/Marist poll showed 86% of fans haven’t changed the amount of professional football they watch.  That means that 14% that have stopped watching, or are watching less.

The problem isn’t NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.  He didn’t punch Rice’s fiancée in the face, knocking her unconscious. This is just the most recent NFL black eye (ugh, sorry) which reveals a deeper, disturbing, systemic malignancy now dragged into the sunlight by the press and social media.

Yet I still watch football. It's a dilemma for me, and others, I'd bet. The NFL counts on this cognitive dissonance, or holding two opposing views at the same time, to keep the money rolling in.  George Orwell called it double-think.  Football is good AND football is bad.   

The problem is the "bad" is piling up.  Let's look at just the past ten years:

- Concussions. 

- Brain damage - Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE. 

- Multiple suicides of retired players (including beloved Bear Dave Duerson in 2011) suffering from CTE. 

- Multiple players going to prison - former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez now a current convicted murderer. Michael Vick served time for dog fighting.

- Animal abuse.

- Drug abuse.

- Gun charges.

- Rape charges.

- Domestic violence.

- Child abuse.

Holy crap (pun intended).  That lump under the rug is a small mountain now. And it stinks.

As part of the forty percent of female NFL fan base, I’m a football girl teetering on the edge.  I love the game.  I hate the reprehensible actions of some players.  Although I speak only for myself, I know I am not alone.  Many fans, men and women, are teetering, too.

NFL, clean your $10 billion dollar house.  Quickly. Show us you care about the integrity of the sport, not just the money. Show us that you actually want to put a stop to your players' reckless, violent, illegal behavior and not just to bad publicity. Draw a line.  Enforce it.

The mountain of sh*t is rising. The stink can no longer be ignored. Our patience is waning.  We want to stay with you. Give us a reason.  Fix it.  We love our (insert your fav NFL team name here) but our love isn't blind. 

Football is not the only game in town.

GO BLACKHAWKS!

WRITERS RULE - #10kByLaborDay

Writing marathon #10KByLaborDay

Right now I am in the middle of the Twitter write-fest started by authors Valerie Cole and Jodi Meadows called #10KByLaborDay. I am having fun! In the middle of revise-hell (and make no mistake, revising is 80% pain & 20% joy) I am actually having fun.

Because I am in the midst of revising my sucky manuscript so that it sucks less, I am not actually able to count 10,000 words.  Deleting lines, rewriting scenes, checking the new subplots changes are through the whole book, etc. is my goal.  You know, butt in chair, chains on wrists, write, write, think, write some more. 

Since writing is so solitary – just you and your computer or you and a pad of paper -  having other writers participating, sweating, sobbing, struggling, and swearing (unfortunately, quite a bit of that happening here) gives me a base.  I am not alone this hour.  Others are swearing (probably) with me.

I am keeping my ass in the chair and fingers on the keyboard because I know there will be hourly check-ins and writers reporting their counts with happy faces or woeful words but we are all still trying.  These writers are over my shoulder, urging me on, quashing (for now) the nagging voice in my head to just give it up already.  It’s a boost, really.

A boost of energy.  A boost of support. A boost of confidence and optimism.

So let me rephrase my earlier statement.  I am in the midst of revising my COMPLETED, non-sucky manuscript so that it’s tighter, leaner, faster, stronger.

There, that’s better.

My manuscript is AWESOME!

Oops, too much.

This weekend we are a family of sorts.  We all write different things.  YA, contemporary romance, fantasy, thrillers, sci-fi adventures. We all know the solitude and frustration of writing the sentence or paragraph or scene that just isn’t good enough.

But this weekend we push on, because 10K is scary but not impossible.  Because we all need a reason and a boost once in a while. 

Because our friends might misread our emails and posts and think we are all running a marathon!

WRITE ON.

Midwestern town under siege

Wow.  I wanted my first post to be funny but events in Ferguson, MO dictate otherwise.

WTF.

Facts:

Michael Brown was killed by a police officer last Saturday evening.

The town of Ferguson reacted in outrage.

The police (Ferguson and St. Louis County) reacted to the town’s outrage with tear gas, rubber and wooden bullets, some tank thing, rifles, even arresting reporters from the Huffington Post and Washington Post and an alderman from St. Louis last night.

Everyone needs to CALM THE F DOWN.  There is just not enough information available to justify the freak out on both sides. 

Why was Mr. Brown shot?  Don’t know.   

Was he unarmed? Don’t know. 

Who is the police officer? Don’t know.

 Does that police officer have a history of targeting young black males? Don’t know.  

 Everything has been speculation, “eye-witnesses” are notoriously unreliable. There has been no substantial investigation information released, just a ramp up to police/soldiers as if defending the town from the enemy; in this case the residents of Ferguson, MO.  The police are sworn to protect and serve these residents.

What we do know, however, is that the citizens of Ferguson want answers.  So does the rest of the country.  Why don’t we have those answers on Thursday, when the shooting happened on Saturday?  If the officer gunned down an innocent man, let the justice system work. File charges, arrest him, fire him.  At the very least hold a press conference releasing what independent investigation has found so far in its search for the truth.  

I understand holding the officer’s name back.  This town is PISSED and the police fear for safety of the officer and his family. So get them to safety and announce the investigation results so far.  Why say nothing and show up looking like in invading army with tanks and rifles to a peaceably demonstrating town?  But these police soldiers ordered U.S. CITIZENS to stop taking pictures, manhandled and shoved U.S. CITIZENS, tear gassed and flash-banged U.S. CITIZENS.

Governor Jay Nixon announced pulling the St. Louis County PD earlier today. A start. On CNN Mayor James Knowles said he was too busy giving interviews to read reports and answer actual questions.  A back-slide. 

This is now much more than an officer’s terrible decision to use deadly force.

The horror and shock and disbelief and outrage of a small Midwestern town under siege by its own police force has stunned a nation and cannot, will not, be forgotten.