Whoa.. yes, it's really I, posting. Much going on in my life that has prevented me from connecting with you, dear reader; some of it good, some of it not as much, but all interesting.

Here's what I've been thinking about lately: a writer friend of mine is revising a novel. It addresses a difficult and painful subject - sexual violence - and tries to reach some kind of happy outcome for the characters. This friend is having difficulty, due to the temptation to bring too much reality into the book. Too many details, too many subplots, too many extraneous motivations, too much emotion that distract from the horror of the subject. Yet, the author says, all of the extras are real. 

Fair enough. I don't envy the author; this is a truly challenging topic, and frankly I stay away from "real" problems as much as possible in my writing. (There's a reason I write speculative fiction, after all.) But my friend has chosen to wrestle with the subject, so I'm here to support the effort as much as I can.

And in so doing, I've been trying to articulate what exactly the role of "reality" is in fiction. My friend's novel would probably come under the genre heading of Women's Fiction. The Romance Writers of American define women's fiction as "a commercial novel about a woman on the brink of life change and personal growth. Her journey details emotional reflection and action that transforms her and her relationships with others and includes a hopeful/upbeat ending with regard to her romantic relationship." OK, then. So how does reality figure into the plot, the setting, the dialogue, and the character development? 

That question led me to a more fundamental one: how does reality figure into any novel? And in pondering, I've deduced the following answer: it doesn't. Somewhere on my bookshelf of "respectable" literature is a little tome left over from my expensive undergraduate education, called Resisting Novels: Ideology and Fiction by Lennard J. Davis. There's more to it, but the gist is that novels are in essence, lies. They are a structure of ideology, carefully crafted to subvert the reader's hold on his own reality and ensnare him in another world order.

… it's exhaustion. 

I don't think I've ever been as freakin' tired as I am right now. I mean, my brain feels as sludgy as liverwurst. My eyes actually hurt to be open. And let's not even mention the headache. I want nothing more than to just curl up and black out.

And yet, I'm listening to little girls tap out "Old Macdonald" on a tinny electronic keyboard next to me. Because I'm still mom. I'm still "on." And there's no rest in sight. Ugh.

It's been exactly two months since my last blog post. WTH have I been doing all this time? 

Well, the good news is I've started another novel. And I've been THINKING about Shadow King and my looming editing work. I've gotten lovely useful comments from my beta readers. And there's another short story brewing in my head. Sounds like author heaven, right? All wheels turning, all cylinders engaged.

The bad news is I've been dealing with yet another health crisis with yet another parent. January seems to be a sucky month in this respect. And there's been a slew of snow days, which have meant I'm on mommy duty more than author duty.

I don't know how you imagine your 40s, but I never thought I'd understand so clearly and keenly what the term "sandwich generation" means. It means stuck in the middle, with two equally beloved and equally cranky and needy groups of people vying for a dominant piece of my pie. Or, I suppose I should be consistent in the analogy: vying for a bigger slice of ham and cheese. (If you're a vegan, think hummus.) I had a realization the other day: this is what the rest of my life will be like. And I thought, how did I get here? I'm not even that nice of a person.

Seriously, I'm not. I'm no selfless angel. I don't live to serve. I don't get off by denying myself. How can I possibly fit into this role of caregiver that has been thrust upon me, by choice in the case of the children, and circumstance, in the case of the parents?

The beta readers I mentioned above both had a similar reaction to one element of Shadow King: that of the plain-clothes, off-the-mountain, earthly Jesus. They were freaked out a bit. Without giving away the plot, I can say that Max encounters the divine not in the way we often imagine - a garden of blazing light, with angelic choirs and celestial majesty. Nope. His Jesus shows up in khakis and a sweater. He carries a pocket knife; he plays checkers, drinks whiskey, and talks about sex. He's ordinary, but pushy; he gets into Max's head and messes around there. He doesn't go away, doesn't take kindly to being ignored, and won't let Max step away from what he's been called to do.

So why is this Jesus freaky? I think because he's so real. He's so close. He's so human. He's just around the corner; Max bumps into him all the time. Transcendent encounters with the divine are easy to accept in literature, because so few people ever have them. They sound beautiful, comforting, not scary. A God who drinks your Perrier at a cafe is freaky because it could happen to you. And then what would you do? 

Like Max, I'm feeling selfish. I don't want to sacrifice myself for the sake of others. I don't want to love my neighbors as much as myself. I can't imagine I'm that good of a person. But that same Jesus that's bugging Max won't leave me alone, either. He's drinking my coffee. He's messing with my head. He keeps calling, and because he's infinite AND human, he'll keep at it.

I guess I'd better stop ignoring. Can I be myself and the sandwich? Maybe so, with the right help. I'll let you know how it goes. Peace to you all.

I have a friend in my weekly writer's group who makes doughnuts whenever there's a school snow day. Nowadays her kids are in college and she rules over an empty nest, but she's kept up the tradition. And you may be aware that we in CT have had a lot of snow days in 2013. (I think my kids have been home from school 13 days already, and there's another storm predicted for next week! AUgh.)

In the aftermath of the Blizzard of 2013, I was desperate for things to do indoors with the children. We had 34" of snow followed by a dreadful icy rain that turned everything into a giant solid glacier. You couldn't even go sledding in all the snow. It was dreadful. Increasingly frantic, I finally remembered my friend's tradition and for only the second time in my life made doughnuts. You can see the result here.

And not just doughnuts, but chocolate glazed doughnuts. Yes, they were fat-laden sugar bombs. Yes, they had tons of completely non-nutritious calories. And yes, all twenty of them were gone inside of two days. 

But here's the thing: they were a heavenly treat. They were fun to make. They made my family happy when we were all ready to climb the walls and pick fights with each other. What's more, they were the size that doughnuts USED to be (2-1/2") before everything got super sized. It's true. If you look at a recipe from, say, pre-1980, you'll discover that ALL doughnuts were this size. Don't believe me? Just go to a cooking supply store and ask for a doughnut cutter. You'll see there is a "standard" cutter (the 2-1/2" size) and "jumbo," "large," "extra-large," or something similar. Of course, if you've been inside a Dunkin' Donuts in the last decade you'll be shocked to compare their monsters with my petite little confections. (Yes, there really is a conspiracy to get you to overeat.)

My point? It's OK to indulge. The issue isn't whether to make the doughnuts, or eat the doughnuts; it's what kind and how many. Good, homemade doughnuts aren't evil. (High fructose corn syrup is evil, but that's another story.) The key to practicing moderation is, well, moderation. Pick the right time, the right size, the right number, and stick to things that indulgent but not self-destructive.

We can apply the doughnut lesson to so many things in life. Substitute "watching TV," "staying up late," "forgetting the laundry," or any number of things we're not supposed to do all the time, and the fundamentals remain the same. 

As this winter hangs on, and on, I might make doughnuts again. More likely, I'll forget the laundry and the vacuuming to work on the sequel (more on that in my next post). Either way, there's no reason to feel guilty. Peace.

So, a few days ago (Memorial Day, in fact), I woke up around 5 a.m. with the entire opening of sequel #2 in my head. I mean, everything: character names, plot, action, details, even the actual words. It was like having the book read to me. Since then, I've been going to bed each night and waking up with the story playing like a private movie complete with narration.

One of my writing buddies said at our weekly meeting last Wednesday, "You're almost at the end, aren't you," referring to the as-yet-unnamed sequel. And it hit me that yes, I am. Oh, I'll probably hold forth for another 75 pp. or so, but we're definitely in the home stretch. And that fact, of course, brings up the issue that I'm no closer to finding a publisher for the first book, and here I am about to complete the second.

Should I admit this publicly? Well, to the people who understand and matter, it's not a shock. After all, finding a publisher is incredibly hard for a "normal" book, and what I have is far from normal. If it were "just" urban fantasy, "just" dark, "just" Christian, "just" Dickensian, "just" Egyptian mythology, I might have a niche, but all five? Ha! I've got a genuine Frankenstein's monster here. I have to take it on absolute faith that I have a story (actually three) worth telling and reading. It's incredibly challenging to remain optimistic, but I wouldn't even think of giving up, because I couldn't if I wanted to. Dorrie, Max, Seth, and the others would haunt my dreams if I don't let them out onto the page. And my dreams are complicated enough already, thank you very much.

So I continue to pray, write, query, and pray, in that order, in between the rest of my life and work responsibilities. I'm aiming to have the sequel done before the end of the year, and to either have a publisher or go independent in the same time frame. Think I can do it? Your words of encouragement would be welcome indeed. 

So, my Dearest Darling finally read my WIP (Sequel #1, as yet untitled), and commented, "Well. That's dark."

On the face, not exactly a ringing endorsement.

In fact, that's the sort of comment that could make one's heart sink deeper than the Titanic (sorry, folks, but in honor of the anniversary I had to make the analogy...). And this remark came on top of a recent struggle to craft a query letter, some less-than-helpful criticism, and general angst about the publish-ability of my novels that I'm sure every writer experiences at some point. All of the above added up to a fit of blue-devils, followed by a personal examination of the nature of darkness.

"Dark" is one of those terms that everybody in publishing, film, and TV uses without really having a solid definition. To some, "dark" means "magic" (read, "satanism"); to others, it means "humorous in a tragic or morbid way;" and to still others it means "violent" or in some cases actually dark as in "dimly lit." I've used the term to describe my books, and at other times I've left it out as unhelpful or simply confusing (or worse, trendy).

At first I was disappointed in my Dearest Darling's reaction, but as I questioned him further he said, "I just don't like evil characters." My Dearest Darling found himself unsettled by the darkness of the human soul. He doesn't like the antagonist in my WIP, and I think by extension he doesn't like that part of me that enabled me to create a narcissistic, merciless, sadistic killer whose only real motivation is anger. 

So, in other words what I've done is to create a character that feels disturbingly real. He's a nightmare from the deepest recesses of our imagination come to life on the page, a waking horror. He's frightening, the more so because a living breathing person assembled him word by word.


But, dare I mention that we're not supposed to like evil? That we're supposed to be frightened of it, and look for some way or someone to combat it? Because there's evil in the world and on the page, we need heroes. And, lest anyone think I've succumbed to my own darkness, I'm also the creator of the protagonist who ultimately defeats the villain. And my hero's light is mine, too.