2012: The Year of.... My Book finding an agent

Otherwise known as Chasing Pavements.

By the end of 2012, if I have not exhausted every agent (Australian or otherwise) and started croakily imploring "Should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavements even if it leads nowhere?" Adele-style then please slap me, all of you, and tell me I should've tried much, much harder.

Here's the thing:
...I have a memoir ready to be published ... okay, polished by an editor of their choice then published.
...It's in two parts.
...Part 1 is 84,000 words - it loosely chronicles Steve's and my journey to parenthood for the first time and the abrupt end of our daughter's life.
...Part 2 is 77,000 words - it branches into the awakening of the positives to be found in the death of our baby, our IVF journey and culminates in the eventual "success" of a take-home baby. Enter stage left: The LGBB!
...I have been short-listing some agents since November but haven't nearly exhausted the list yet. It's a long process, trying to decipher who would be interested in my work.

I have had the diligent, supportive and helpful readers. I have had the critics. I have had the "you haven't written a book, you haven't even nearly finished writing yet" helpers who haven't read a single word {way to confuse me! I'm preeeeetty sure I have a well-rounded, well edited book here, or so I am being repeatedly told by very intelligent readers, so - with the greatest respect for your experience - perhaps offer to read it before you offer to tell me I don't have anything worth publishing yet!}. It's time to push the baby out of the nest.

But in which direction?

Ultimately, I feel the pressure of knowing none of it will have meant anything if I can't get this thing out there. I know, I know... the healing in the writing has to have been worth it... Blah-blah-blah. I'll cut to the chase and just say, no. It won't have been. If I can't get this off the ground, I will have fallen short of my goal and I can't let that happen. Not when Ellanor's memory is all over the darn thing. Besides, I never started writing it for any other reason. And I haven't written the book for that (self-healing). I was well through the worst of it when I began writing. As for the actual logistics of distributing the book, I'm not keen on self-publishing. I want to truly leave no stone unturned as I go down the traditional route of publishing. So I will be boning up on what I do know about how it all works - and will be scrambling to fix and change things according to what I learn, because there is SO much I don't know about how it all works! It's kind of like trying to find the end of a piece of string amongst a balled-up mass of intertwining threads and other people saying they have a vague idea of what you're looking for and where you'll find it, they saw it, oh... "over there somewhere, you'll find it, just keep looking..." Aaaaaargh. Just TELL meeeee!

*composure*  Now I'm just starting to sound like Veruca Salt.

Image

What I hope to achieve is only going to be possible if someone has faith in the project. This is where I am going to call on the support of any readers out there who want to see it happen. Plenty of you have said "It HAS to get out there!" and "I am going to do all I can to spread the word... because the story needs to be told!" and words to that effect. It has buoyed and humbled me to the ends of the Earth. I truly hope that sometime in the not too distant future, I get to call you on your words and ask you to come good with them!

So, uh...... anyone know any good agent/s who don't mind a bit of real-life nitty-gritty wrapped up in a positive message??  Then help to hook me up, dagnabbit, starting with sharing this post!  pretty please with a cherry on top

Be your own Light source

The other night, in my jumble of thoughts that had been piled one atop the other until I could start to sort through them - much like a pile of clean clothes that waits to be folded until you absolutely MUST move them because you need the laundry basket - I remembered a single line from one of the latter chapters of my book.

The first part of the chapter (unedited, okay, just if you're reading and you're "in the field" and you want to take potshots *disclaimer over*) is below. But the poignant line that kept repeating in my head as I grabbed that much-needed alone time in the shower was:

Be your own Light source.

I can't be more profound than that. Perhaps it will speak to you if you read the following, but I am damned if I can string together a coherent sentence in my mind now to more properly or completely explain myself.... Gimme a break. I've just farewelled Cyclone Family (I love them, I gnash my teeth over them - the children - I wonder why my daughter MUST copy the naughty antics and lose herself in her cousins instead of being her beautiful self, while they are here. I mourn, deeply, the fact that I will not see my sister in-law again for another two years when they leave... But now, at least I can think for the first time in two weeks and have some precious sweet Me Time)

For now, I want to ask you:  Do you know how to be your own Light Source?

AUGUST

In August, I had a really profound dream. I was, of course, still coming back down to Earth after the euphoria of giving birth to our girl, as well as becoming familiar with the floating nothingness of learning how to live without her - and yet, with her, for she was both eternally in my life and not present.

At first, the dream didn't seem like much. But it was terrifying, bathing me in a cold sweat. One of those dreams that really grips you. One that you come out of, realising, by the sensations in your body, that you've had adrenaline coursing through you and when you connect it was because of the dream you just had, it kind of freaks you out a little bit more. Years later, I can still remember the fear and dread I felt, long after I woke up.

In the dream, I was somewhere outside, in pitch darkness. My eyes were wide as saucers, trying to adjust to the lack of light. Eventually, I was able to see a little way in front of me.

I was in a forest. A forest of dead, bare, white-barked trees standing grey against the pitch darkness of the night. It looked as though a fire had gone through and razed all the vegetation, everything seemed to be covered in white ash. It was beautiful, almost lunar in its appearance – if the moon’s surface bore dead trees, that is.  

In the distance, I saw something flicker. It was the flash of a wild animal’s eyes glinting off a light source. A rising sense of fear sent goosebumps right up my back and into my scalp. The animal was hunched over in a prowling, purposeful stance, coming towards me and fixing its steadfast, hungry intent on me as it padded closer, hunting me like I was its prey. I backed up and found myself standing alongside one of the trees. Clambering up the trunk, I tried to get as high off the ground as I could. I was petrified but I didn't know what of, exactly. The dark, the predatory animal, the silence. All of it. I was hyperventilating and panicking by now. This was not what I had bargained for, this dream, when I had gone to bed that night asking for a message or visit from Ellanor (something I had grown used to doing, for I learned to look out for her or her words in my dream state). And then I saw the animal. 

Wow, it's beautiful but it looks spooked, I thought. It looks menacing and out for my blood, why is it hunting me so fiercely? What is it? I was instantly informed, somehow, that it was an ocelot. Its staring eyes never left mine as it came closer and closer, really getting low to the ground now. And then it leapt towards me.

I was up the tree with nowhere else to go. The ocelot sank its sharp, feline claws into my right thigh. And I screamed. The pain was searing and instant, a sting that lingered for some time after I woke up. When I did force myself awake, there was a silent scream still in my lungs and I breathed out the air I had been holding onto.

I still felt shaken, hunted, although I was now in the relative safety of the darkness of our bedroom, feeling more and more present in the room, Steve sleeping peacefully at my side. When I made myself think back over the events of the dream, I suddenly realised I had been the light source. I made a promise to myself to seek out the animal wisdom teachings of the ocelot, for I had been getting used to seeing these sorts of things – dreams and other seemingly odd or out of place messages – as signposts to my further learning, becoming guided by the rhythms of these instances that were unfolding for me in my life more and more, instead of shying away from them. Once upon a time, before knowing Ellanor, these were the sorts of things that I would wave off, not even willing to consider them as anything other than random occurrences in my daily life (or dream state).

It took me four years before I finally got around to looking up the ocelot totem, even though I was still wondering from time to time during those years what it had been trying to say to me that night. What I uncovered helped to retrospectively patch another part of the quilt of my healing at that time in my life, for I had also been on the precipice of growing into the more aware, more open, more willing person I was to become.

“Animal Totem: The Ocelot

Comfortable in the high trees and in water, Ocelot can show you how to adapt to whatever environment you find yourself and how to look at your surroundings from on high. Ocelot also shows you how to regenerate through solitude and quiet meditation. Because they live in both land and water, they have a connection with both the physical and spiritual world and the ability to be in two places at once. Use Ocelot as your meditation guide to connect to the spirit world.”  

Putting aside what was obvious to me - that the appearance of the ocelot in my dream, and now finding this particular totem’s wording, was a confirmation of connecting with Ella in the world she had so briefly left to come here – I found the dream so much more profound, now that the years had passed, as if it had happened back then in order for me to bookmark it, somehow, and provide me with this affirming proof so far down the path I had been on. I was the Light source, a point not lost on me, now I look back on it. It gave me some confirmation, at least, that I had been on the 'right track', even back then when I honestly thought I might shrivel up and be forgotten if I did not diligently stay the course in my connection to my own truth. 

"If they can't get it through to you while you're awake, they'll do it when you're asleep!" Jen had once told me, laughing at my wide eyes. How right she was.

My life was much different around the time of the visit from the ocelot. I was looking at things from a higher perspective more often by then – from my soul's perspective, or my higher consciousness – for that was where I was learning to forgive myself and my actions, give myself and others a break, find my own solace and, most important to my survival, have a safe place in which to regenerate and fill up my reserves, sometimes daily. For this was my new way of being; Steve and I were living a life pummelled by insecurities now, without all our previous social masks and various obligatories to cushion us. We were dealing with our sorrow, learning how to incorporate our lost child in our lives with meaning and joy, whilst continually having to replenish enough strength to weather whatever the next day and its trespasses were going to bring. I was supposed to learn to accept these shortcomings, delivered by the people around us, even though some were clearly not accepting me in my newfound state.

Towards the end of August, I wrote in my journal:

I am a psycho

Now I’m totally depressed and low, I give up. Don’t even know why I am writing.

I can’t do “this” anymore, whatever “this” is. I don’t want to say I want to stop trying to get pregnant, but I think I have to. I’d say it’s for my sanity, but if I stop trying, I haven’t got any other focus, really, so how can that be good for me?

I’m exhausted. I just completely give up.

So tired of all this shit.

I just wish I wasn’t here.

I don’t feel, at the present moment, that there is anything that really brings me true joy anymore.

Not Steve. Not Pepper. Not friends or family. Nothing previously in this journal. I feel like a fake. And maybe I am.

I can’t stand this life. I hate where I am. And I am stuck here.

Just living.

And I don’t know what for.

 

Diary entry, 25th August, 2004

I recall that this was one of, if not the, lowest days I have ever had in my life. If I was truly going to end my life, it would surely have been on that day. But, once again, something gradually bailed me out over the ensuing hours. As acceptance of my continuing living, breathing, physical self set in, the tears flowed. I did not want to feel stuck here, on Earth. This was not the death sentence I was meant to subject myself to, not in Ellanor’s name. I briefly noted the turning point of coming out of destitution into decisiveness. There did not seem anything more to say:

Spent the rest of the 25th and most of yesterday inconsolably sobbing.

I have given up on being pregnant, of ever having children, anyway – something (someone?) in me keeps telling me it’s not giving up. It’s letting go, with acceptance.

Just as I did when Ella needed to go.

Diary entry, 27th August, 2004

Soon after I made this entry, Steve and I agreed that we had to confront the acceptance of facing a childless life together. It was so difficult to call it that, because we knew we had already given life to a child, yet here we were, having to consider ourselves possibly now destined to be “childless” anyway. We had connected very soundly with an amazing little baby with a huge soul and a set of challenging physical hurdles that meant she would leave us all too soon. It was, therefore, painfully difficult to say to each other, “Well, maybe that was it. Perhaps Ella was all we were ever meant to know.”

Don't wait for permission. Breathe out, it's okay to let go what you've been holding onto. You are adaptable, no matter what. Don't forget your Soul's perspective. You can be your OWN Light source. It is, after all, within you.

Have a good weekend. I'll be back properly next week!

To Chapter One or to Prologue: a call for help (and a couple of readers)

Okies, it's time. I have a few readers up *this* old sleeve, but none up *this* new sleeve and now I'm looking for a few more since I made a few changes to my draft.

My current dilemma: I have a good first chapter. BUT.... I also have a great Prologue. There are differing schools of thought as to whether a Prologue is necessary or, indeed, a good idea at all. Some call it a very old-fashioned way of starting a story. In other places where it is discussed online, it is deemed okay as long as there are clearly defined boundaries. See, for instance, here (source: here):


What Is A Prologue?

A prologue is used mainly for two reasons.

1. To outline the backstory quickly and economically, saving the author from having to resort to flashbacks or ruses such as conversations or memories to explain the background to the reader. This is commonly done in science fiction and fantasy to show why a certain quest is being undertaken or what will happen in the future. The prologue is a better option than a first chapter bogged down in detail.

2. To hook the reader and provide the story question right up front, giving them a reason to keep turning the pages to find out the answer. Quite often the prologue relates to a scene near the end of the story, and the story itself then shows what has led up to this moment. When is this justified? Perhaps when you want to introduce your characters in a more leisurely fashion, and your reader's experience with 'meeting' them will be enhanced by some sort of foreshadowing of what is to come.

Apart from these two reasons, a prologue can be used to introduce a certain character's viewpoint on one occasion only. The rest of the book may be told from just one other viewpoint, or from several different viewpoint characters that are in some way removed from the one you've used in the prologue. The prologue can bypass the danger of viewpoint violation.

So, with all that being said, I was wondering if there are any takers to put their hand up to read the first chapter (and Prologue) of my manuscript. What this will involve is reading approximately 7,000 words and giving your opinion, as the reader, on whether or not the two work together (for you personally). I guess, in a nutshell, I would like to hear from you how "hookie" it is. Does it hook you in? Are you compelled to turn the page?

If you are interested, please contact me via email - aussiejazz@gmail.com - and I'll just say it here... if I get a huge response, please do not be offended if I say 'thanks but no thanks'. There is only so much criticism, however constructive, that one can take at once. And it is with the utmost respect that I may politely decline your offer. Mind you..... if you are the only person who emails me, then consider yourself IN for a sneak peek preview!

*waiting with baited# breath and hitting Publish Post now........*




#Late edit: And this is why I love throwing the offer out there from time to time - I have been advised by someone in the know that the phrase is "bated" not "baited" breath. Thank you. You can read my extract, by all means!

The helper monkey: I've been cheating

I have a confession to make.

I am not really writing my book myself. I have been cheating. I've been using child labour. A gun typist. An Ideas Fairy. Someone who's using words like "PMT" and "Eminem" - listen really close right towards the end and see if I'm wrong about that..... Did you catch what she muttered?

When we went to visit Steve at work (who was there ALL weekend until 1am most nights), he set the LGBB up with the iPad and a little wireless Apple keyboard. Lolly was in bliss. And kept exclaiming that she was writing lots of words for me and writing my book. Awwww bless. And all I could think was, What if.... and Knock yourself out, chick.

Workin' 9 to 5 from Lolly Lovers on Vimeo.

I see this video and ask myself:  What must I look like? To her, I mean? Note to self: Stop bashing laptop keyboard and telling my daughter I "Must. Finish. Book" like some mad woman.

Here is a sneak peek at my next chapter:

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Gripping stuff, huh?


I love my helper monkey. She works at 105 garbled, nonsensical words per minute. Do you need one?

This book writing business

It's hard, you know. You'll find no argument here.

But I wonder, does everyone find it this difficult? Does everyone grow despondent? How is it that some books get churned out in what feels like a matter of months (from concept to bookshelf) where some take - checking my watch - four years and counting to even find any backing? Is this not the Universe telling me to stop?

I'm sorry, folks, this is going to be a Debbie-downer of a post. A bleat. And I'm sorry, also, to any Debbie's. I'm sure you're not all downers.


I feel like that poor contestant you see in the opening weeks of American Idol. The one who is so convinced of her good singing voice. She stands before the three judges, confident as her nerves will allow. Her family waits outside, supporting her and driving the 9 hours across country just so she can try out in Idaho. It's the moment of reckoning for her. She proudly tells them what she's going to sing for them. They smile, certain that someone with so much self-belief and so much backing from family and friends must surely have a great voice. And then the sound comes out.... She doesn't hit a note, makes the production team's eyes water and they're not even musical. She's stopped with a flailing hand by Randy Jackson and that's it. It's all over. She is stunned beyond comprehension. Hadn't she been told she had such a beautiful voice? Had she not been told by her parents, her teachers, her friends and colleagues that she should go for it, if this is her dream? Ah... the penny probably begins to drop on that loooong, silent drive home. They never said she was good. They just kept saying they would support her as she follows her dream. There IS a difference.

I know there are many who would say KEEP GOING! But at what expense? I can't find more than twenty minutes here, five minutes there each day. That's not enough time to find my creator-space in my mind. That's not nearly enough minutes to get into the groove of what I'm writing. I need hours of space. To sit still and listen to what the book is telling me to write. I need time to let the words mull over in my still silence.

When the latest bit of fluff comedic book comes out, it's easy to sell. You're pretty much preaching to the converted. When it's a memoir traversing the depths of grief and seeking the good in all manner of daily interactions.... well, that's proving much harder. Who wants to choose my manuscript over something light?

Everywhere around me online, there are tips and tricks and hints to make my book more polished. Less offensive to the "done" ways of the publishing industry. The tips are as random - valid, but random - as "Don't overuse the word "Suddenly"" and "Never begin your book with a Prologue".

Well... that's just great. That is exactly how mine starts. No, not with the word "Suddenly". I mean it just begins with a current-time pondering moment in a scene that sets up the entire book. That's all.

If something you've worked so hard at is taking so long to come.... Do you take a step back and say "This shouldn't be so hard, I think I'll stop"? In some ways, I feel like I am flogging a horse that stopped a few years ago. It seemed easier to write back then - back when I was far from approaching agents. Far from feeling like I was close. This is proving a huge lesson for me, one that has shown itself many times in my life. Will I take myself out of the running of this race before there's a chance I will come last? Or worse, not even get over the finish line?? This is my pattern. This is something that will kill me early, I have such a desire not to "fail".

I should have known the biggest thing in the way of this book getting out would be me. I just didn't expect to get this far before I realised.



What do you do when you've put so much into something you are trying to achieve but the end result relies not on YOU, but on finding something/someone external who has the same passion for the project?

Say what you mean, mean what you say

Closely related to the Dr Seuss quote, "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter"... I've been wandering around with variations of these two sayings in my head all day.

I got to thinking this week as I was trawling through some more editor's notes/suggestions on Chapter One of my book. This is the chapter that has remained largely untouched for the past 12 months because I was so sure of its already nailing it.... until I realised it needed an overhaul and had to send it back to be edited after I butchered it on my flight back from Sydney. So I got it back today, with notes. One of them stood out so brightly that it struck me as something I could really apply to so much (and so many others, not just myself):

"Is this what you really mean to say here?"

So simple. But I looked again at the sentence his note was referring to and was then compelled to dissect what I had meant when I wrote it. To me, it had made sense - at the time of writing and also on the eleventieth read-through - but now, through another's eyes, I could see plainly that it didn't sit right at all. So I tried to read it again as I had read it all those other times. But it was too late. I had heard it from another individual's perspective and there was nothing for it now but to reconsider my choice of words, if not better explain myself.

It's so amazing, the English language, how you can use words that are relevant and say what you are trying to say.... but dig a little deeper, or have another person reflect back to you what they heard (using your exact words!) and sometimes, all of a sudden, you are saying something entirely different.

More than ever, I see this editing process - this fine tooth-combing, nit-picky, gruelling process - is willing me to bring out what I really mean, and not just in terms of this book. What is my message? Where is my voice? Is my essence truly present in all that I say (let alone do)?

Funny thing is, prior to that plane ride home, I would have said yes, I was satisfied with Chapter One. But now? Now that I have chopped it, had it edited and been forced to look at it yet again in this new state? Now it is absolutely bloody awesome. Which begs the question...... could it be even MORE awesome? Twitchy fingers at the keyboard.

But my real point to writing this post was to just share what I was pondering deeply this morning, on my return from kinder duty - as you do - and ask how you feel on the subject:

Do you really say what you mean? Or do you just think you do? Do you say one thing but hear yourself think another? How do you self-edit as you go (in writing and in life/spoken word)?
As always, you don't have to answer! I know sometimes I throw out the curly ones. Questions, cheeky reader... that'd be questions I mean.

Filled

I'm sitting here on an overcast, still, slow Sunday evening.

I was afforded some time today to stay close to my manuscript and work on the tricky end chapters of Part 1. They're tricky because I am chopping what is close to my heart, yet not so necessary for the flow of the book. My diary entries that I wrote each day (sometimes twice a day) beside Ella's side in the NICU. The reader doesn't really know - although they would have guessed by now - that they are barreling towards the sad end.

The LGBB and her Dad arrived home from a spot of swimming just before. Lolly walked in announcing she was going to watch "her" ABC (goodness, the marketing certainly works) with the headphones on. She started up her account where all her safe internet and program options may be found, and she started one of her favourite shows: Dirtgirlworld.

So I've got these two realities going on. Once again. Feeling closer to my lost newborn because that is where my head has been all afternoon, and yet closer in proximity to this young person who has sprung up seemingly before my very eyes and has raced at lightning speed through newborn, baby and toddler stages to now command the iMac like she was born knowing how.

I'm looking at the back of this gorgeous girl's head. Appreciating her so very, very much. Wanting to tear up, but not needing to. Giggling at the sight of art imitating life in this photo (I put her hair up like this so it wouldn't go in her eyes when she was swimming... I wonder if that's why Dirt Girl's mum did her hair like that).

Loving her. Loving her, too. And loving him.

He's cooking dinner so I can stay in my split world tonight.

Dejectedly Yours...

Please congratulate me.

I feel like a true author.

I have my first proper, formal rejection in my hand. My first properly stamped, self-addressed envelope-returned submission to an agent. Boomerang, straight back at me.

The pages look barely turned (certainly not dog-eared in any way and I'd be forgiven for mistaking that they had actually read through all of it, even though it was way less than what they allowed).  It's a standard slip that has been hastily stuffed in with it. They're really not confident they could properly represent me at any publishers. Another agent may disagree. So I guess what they're saying is, "Good luck finding anyone to print that load of codswallop."

I understand everyone gets rejected. We all know the tale of J. K. Rowling and her famous rejection after rejection. I get that I could be doing this for years yet. And if I want to see my hard slog, sweat and tears (all quite literally) come into proper bound print, then I'd better get used to it. I know all this.

It's just blindingly frustrating to get close a couple of times and then... nothing comes of it. I feel further than I ever was. Even further, actually! Because at least, before, I had a couple of leads. Now those have fizzled into nothing.

And yet, still, I have some sort of following of readers who know a little of me (or a lot), a little of my story (or a lot) and are familiar with my writing. They all - you all - seem to want to read it. Everyone I speak to about my book is desperate for it to be "out" so they can "get their hands on it and read it and tell everyone they know to read it too."

I know it's pretty kick-ass. One reader even went so far - unprompted (yeah! I didn't even bribe her!) - as to tell me:

I enjoy all sorts of texts be they narrative or non-fiction. But it is with true life narratives that I am very good at detecting a "wanker" tone, if you know what I mean. Zealousy that borders on self-obsession and self-indulgence. I can honestly say I do NOT detect that tone in your extract :) An example of the tone I am talking about is in the book "Eat, Pray, Love"...

I love that feedback! I want that sort of feedback. Mind you, it hasn't all been rosy with my focus group readers. Some have said outright that they "don't do sad endings."

I'm not sure if you'd call mine sad or happy. I'd like to think it's happy! But I wouldn't want to exhaust a reader and make them feel like they've run an emotional marathon. So I have paced it quite well, I think, for that very reason.

I mean, yes, it has faults - what draft manuscript hasn't? But this thing is packed with realism, a true window into someone's private life on the journey to conceiving (and losing). The lessons I have learned on this journey are too universal for me not to share them with others. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. It's not a witty cynical look at death - those books are out there, they are in the market and they make a refreshing change and they have their own place on the shelf.

My book is not a piss-take. Sometimes, with the influx recently of these sorts of books (the ones that don't take themselves very seriously), I wonder if that's why I'll never get anywhere. I haven't turned Ella's death into a bit of a jolly laugh through the steps of grief. But then, that's just me being cynical. My book is not trying to be those books. But I know it's up against them, competing with agents who are reading these other submissions and, compared to them, I bet mine feels like an intense drag.

Real does that sometimes.

My book is a true "What I did to turn the massive juggernaut of death and self-woe around", because it's what everyone (who knew me Back Then) wanted to know: How the hell did I do it? How am I not only still standing, but actually thriving and supporting others, to boot?

It took me for-ev-er to stop hiding my light under the so-called bushel (and why is it so-called, by the way??). Now that I have gotten over that and spoken up and said, "Yeah, I guess I do have a story here and a useful, readable one at that", I have to line myself up to get my head lopped not once, or twice, but possibly a dozen or more times.

I don't know if I have enough in me to be bothered, frankly.

And then... I think of her. And I know I will do it all, over and again. And again. I must. For her.

My Boo.

But..... I can't help wondering if everyone isn't collectively just pissing in my pocket. I mean, really. There are soooooo many books flooding the marketplace. Everyone knows how hard it is to get a book published, every writer has read countless stories of people who "think they're writers". Am I one of them?

I am getting confused. I am flagging in my own faith. And I know that is one of the biggest no-no's in this game. If I falter in my self-belief, I'll not have a hope in flaming hell of finding an agent. Or a publisher. I couldn't be arsed looking into self-publishing just yet. I just have to suck it up and keep sending it out.

I'm just.... ahhh... flat about this cold-faced rejection. Let's face it, this kinda isn't what I needed to get my blogging/writing mojo back, now, is it??! Couldn't it have waited at least one business day after I returned?

So here I go again. Preparing some sample chapters to send out again. Wish me luck. Again?

Turfed

Today I'm going to share a section of chapter 8 from my book that is getting chopped.

For a while now, I have thought that it stems the flow of the narrative. Last night, when I received chapter 6-10 back from the editor, it seemed he agreed. So out it goes.

Rather than lose it forever, I thought I would put it here. For safe keeping :) It's not that these few paragraphs are irrelevant - they most certainly are - but it is a bit clumsy in the scheme of the story either side of it. It's completely unedited and very raw, so please look past the strange paragraph breaks and long-windedness (which I am sooooo good at!).

See what you think and, as always, please feel free to comment or share your own similar experiences (from either side of the fertility fence).

   “I miss my baby, she’s only eight months old and I’ve never been away from her for this long before,” cried one of the bridesmaids. We were at my aunt’s house getting dressed for her wedding. I was surprised when tears sprang in my eyes for this new mum who was crying because she missed her baby so much. I was really struck by the emotion in this woman whom I’d met on only a few other occasions. But I had never thought she would openly cry and now I saw a softening in her that wasn’t noticeable to me before she’d had her baby girl. It intrigued me further, this wondrous and as yet unattainable role of motherhood. That it could change a person so much beyond their control that it caused them to ruin their makeup when they were getting ready to be in a wedding. It was as if she could not help the tears. And it wasn’t that anything was wrong – her healthy baby was at home with her grandparents. It was just the simple fact that she missed her daughter so terribly much; I found it very touching. 

   Aunty Jo and her partner had a beautiful wedding. It was lovely to see them so emotional with each other and Steve and I were greatly honoured to play such an important part in their public commitment to one another. Towards the end of the night, I remember looking across the room and seeing the bridesmaid who had missed her baby so much. She was still there but was making moves to leave with her husband and I could tell from where I was standing that she really wanted to go home.

   All of a sudden, surprising me, I felt a sudden surge of jealousy and anger towards this girl. I don’t know where it came from and it was certainly not intentional, but the emotions of the day and the realisation that we had witnessed another couple coming together - no doubt also marking the beginning of the end of our friendship with them as we knew it - had taken its toll. 

   For this was how it was starting to take shape: our long-time friends and family were getting married and starting families. It was the natural progression of things, Steve and I were well aware of this. But because our family could not get started, we felt as though we were remaining the same “dual income, no kids”, perpetually socially available couple. Others around us were settling down, which was what we were so desperately yearning to do ourselves. 

   I sat at an empty seat at one of the beautifully decorated reception tables and mentally counted the number of years that Steve and I had been together. We had just celebrated our third wedding anniversary, having been a couple for over five years before that. I was suddenly gripped with fear that my previously single but newly wedded aunt and friend was probably going to beat me and have a baby first. 

   Was this what I had become? The stereotypical bitter, twisted childless woman? It was wearing me down, the weight of not being able to bear a baby I knew was surely out there for us because of some as yet still mysterious genetic factor in Steve’s chromosomal makeup. And I knew it was far more than feeling “beaten” to the post – it was the desperate fear of being left behind and not being able to completely share friendships with people once they had had babies. I felt lonely, like a perpetually little kid in an increasingly grown-up world.

   I suddenly wanted to go home. Why had my thoughts turned to babies? I had had such a great day with Aunty Jo and her family. I felt so guilty, standing there in my gorgeous dress with my perfect hair and makeup all intact, hiding my dark thoughts. After all, they were unfounded fears anyway. Jo hadn’t even mentioned wanting a family. It was a tiny glimmer of hope that perhaps, just perhaps, we could at least have our first baby at the same time as them, if not sooner. So I stood tall and shook off my sadness, this wasn’t the time or place to be thinking of myself.

   We waited to hug the newlyweds goodbye, bidding them farewell and safe travels on their honeymoon.

   Aunty Jo’s wedding triggered the onset of thoughts that had not previously surfaced but had obviously been there for a while, just simmering. It sparked a new awareness in me of noticing just how many couples had begun not only their relationships in the time since Steve and I had been together, but were now having babies as well. 

   It seemed nobody was safe from my critical observation. I envied celebrities in magazines right through to people in my office building. A young girl from one of the offices where I worked became pregnant to her boyfriend of five months and I felt like she was parading her blossoming belly and glowing pride and happiness in front of me whenever I saw her. Of course she wasn’t. But why did she have to rub her belly so often? It was like watching a walking glamour magazine ad. “How To Be Enviably Pregnant.” She was perfectly shaped, poised, absolutely stunning. And some days I wanted to gouge her eyes out.

I'm published!

Okay, so it's one chapter in an anthology.... but still! Urged by Tim to do so, I entered one piece for consideration in this project. I'd like to imagine my little excerpt from my book, 'Into The Bliss' (it's a memoir, about... moi... and my journey, with a difference, through the grief of child loss and out the other side) had a David and Goliath battle on its hands to struggle its way to the fore amidst the other submissions.  And it must have done, in its own way, because it made it in. I am stoked. And shocked. But mostly, stoked.

You may realise you know some of the bloggers if you read the book.

If it remains the only thing that ever gets published of mine, then I am right proud about it. Proceeds are going to a UK charity, Children In Need, and the book was published on the 19th of this month with much fanfare (and not a little trumpeting being done by its very proud and esteemed editor and publisher, Tim Atkins, of Dotterel Press/Bringing Up Charlie fame). Cor. I feel a bit like a link farm for him after all that lot!

So anyway, if you see fit to purchasing one (or more!) 'Tiny Acorns', just know you are contributing to a very worthy cause.

Here is the official press release:

PRESS RELEASE

--- TINY ACORNS ----

Dotterel Press has launched a charity anthology featuring the work of several regional writers -and raising money for this year's Children in Need appeal.

All the items were inspired by a free on-line Creative Writing e-course run earlier this year by Tim Atkinson. The course itself was inspired by one of the students who - having signed up for an evening class in writing - was disappointed to find that the course was cancelled at the last minute due to lack of interest.

The ten-week replacement on-line course, by contrast, attracted a huge national following. Well over 100 people registered in the first few days and many thousands more followed the lessons informally week-by-week, downloading them from the website.

Inspired by some of the exercises they completed, the budding authors wrote and submitted pieces for an end-of-course charity anthology. The best were selected for publication. And last Friday Tiny Acorns was launched to great acclaim, to coincide with the BBC's annual Children in Need charity telethon.

The genres covered in the book range from flash-fiction to more traditional short-stories, life-writing, humour, poetry and autobiography. There's something in it for everyone. And if people are inspired by what they read, they can have a go for themselves as the entire creative writing course has been reprinted in the book's appendix.

Tiny Acorns was published last Friday (ISBN 978-0-9562869-1-8) and is available direct for just £8.99 from the Dotterel Press Online store. 

Fancy a Friday flogging?

ReadNorWriteNoFlo

I am in a bit of a writer's rut, at the end of an ardous few weeks. Health wise, I'm getting there. As I type this, I hear the LGBB coughing her lungs out (she is fast asleep), neither of us are sleeping soundly and haven't for a fortnight. Mercifully, Steve hasn't caught this (yet) and it is my firm intention to keep it that way. There is nothing quite so tedious as going through nursing your child, then yourself, to find you have a case of man-flu on your hands. To be fair, though, I'd humour him going to bed with this one, it's been right awful.

So. There's not much bloggy inspiration in me. No desire to use up the brain space for my dear, trusty blog. Instead, I've found myself drawn to looking at pretty, very pretty, things like this and this, all terribly gorgeous and dreamy and just letting my brain go "ahhhhhhh", much like looking at a photo of ABBA used to do (it still gives me a feeling of comfort, looking at that lot and remembering how very, very happy I was as a kid to dance around my grandparents' lounge room to Arrival and make up concerts and be Agnetha.... wha? shuddap, why're you looking at me like that?) and not feeling much like being the one doing the talking right now. I hereby advise I may not post for a little while after this one. There is a website project I need to finish up for a client (and it looks awesome, he's a landscape designer and I'm steeped in all these professional images of the most amazing formal backyards - those outdoor-room types - so am channeling a lot of my inspiration into that. And I've a tonne of readings to catch up on (loving my homework for the Tarot class!).

And finally, I can also see the last page of my book. I am *this* close to finishing now. Excruciating, the wait to see how it will end (even I don't know yet!).

Exciting times. Gruelling times. Bit draining on the old creative reserves, in fact. It's little wonder, really, that the mere thought of the pressure writing a post a day (or anywhere near that) for the month of November is enough to make me break out in hives. So I shan't even attempt to take part, piker that I may well be.

See you soon! I shall be reading and commenting wherever I go. Mwah-mwah, hugzzzz.


I cheated and linked this several days' old post to Lori's FlogYoBlog Friday  instead of writing a new one today... Have you joined the linky?

And what, pray tell, do I do with THIS?

I have this paragraph here. I've written it down. It was part of some larger train of thought for the book that I hope desperately will arrive at my house again - Polar Express style - so I can catch it and it'll take me where this was going. Because I lost it. My train of thought, that is.

There's something profound here. I know there is. Can you see it?

Oh..... Darn it all anyway (to quote Clarke Griswold)!! This one is really going to grip me until I nut it out.

    I thought it was going to be something to do with having a baby (being fulfilled and happy and joyful). But the more I looked around me, the more I saw parents who weren’t happy. Who were complaining. Who were, quite frankly, victimising their position because of their “lot in life”. But there were also others who had it far worse and yet, were genuinely happy.
    I pondered this point deeply over my days in our empty home. I came to the conclusion that it was less about the circumstances (of being childless) and more about personifying joy. Alone. On my own. Separate from Steve and anyone we knew or anything we owned. It seemed so easy that I almost overlooked it as being important at all.

A not so subtle illustration

I have been asked so many times over the past six years (gosh, can it be almost 7 since Ellanor left us?!), what "should" people do or say around their loved one whose baby has died. It's a tricky question to answer, because it's not as simple as any finite hard and fast rule. Commonsense, I would like to think, plays a decent part in anyone's approach as to how best they can work their way through with their friend/loved one.

But I will give an example (below), which - oh what a surprise! - is an excerpt from my book, and hopefully illustrates just one of the ideal ways that I was shown the space with grace (as I put it) to simply *be* in any given moment. Only a very few special people are able to do this, unfortunately, from all accounts I've come across in my time, listening to others' stories of loss and a desire to not have their situation waved or hugged or talked away. I'd like to think that by sharing this, there might blossom even more of those graceful angels amongst us:

     One of my oldest, dearest friends was having her 30th birthday celebrations at a restaurant in the city. I had been looking forward to the outing ever since we had received the invitation. Stacey and I had lost touch for a few years – different schools and then different neighbours and work commitments had caused us to drift apart – but we had reconnected just days after Ella died, when Stacey called me out of the blue. It was a moment of pure uplifting joy for my soul as she entrusted to me the secret that she was in the early stages of her own precarious, uncertain pregnancy after already suffering two miscarriages. I could hear in Stacey’s voice the hesitant mixture of hope and anticipation with fear and nervousness about the baby’s survival and I identified with it instantly.
     Stacey went on to deliver a healthy, strong boy into the world. I finally mustered the nerve to meet up with them when the little bloke was about thirteen weeks old. I cried with joy for my friend but felt a tugging at my heart that I assumed would always happen now when I met any friends’ children for the first time. I was not wrong, as it turns out.
     Stacey was so lovely the day I met her son. While I was taking all this in, her pace and conversation slowed to match mine. Nothing was said in an attempt to gloss over my obvious pain. There was no rush to comfort me, no outstretched arms that made me feel awkward and obliged to accept a hug I didn’t want, no gestures that led me to believe I was being inappropriate. I quietly wept as I held her son and Stacey just sat with me, very focused and still. It felt so good. Gradually, we began to talk and I thanked her profusely for being so, well, normal towards my reaction! This was how I had hoped it could be and if one person, just one decent person in my life, could deliver me this space with her graceful presence, then I considered myself extremely fortunate.

Simple

Thank you for last night, blogosphere. I could not have put my chin up without you. Surely you've all at some point in your lives snuck away when you've had guests to check your emails? (if you are saying no, I don't believe you!)

It was a truly gorgeous night. I did not mention to our guests the reason for all the candles I had lit around the house, for never one to do things by halves, I had lighted them all and was thinking about the vast number of people around the world who would be lighting their own throughout the night. And when I looked at the flicker of the flames, I felt the shift in my heart.

It's a great relief to notice joy, you know, when your life at times feels cloaked by depression. You have to remember to grab it, for it can tend to seem as though it is fleeting.

There was a joint tie for the best part of the evening for me. Perhaps you could help me decide, because I think they're equally EEEEEK-AWWW!-worthy:


Exhibit A:

The 'Welcome For Tea' poster Lolly drew for our guests... very AWWWW!

I love that "David" looks like he's recovering from a lobotomy and "Mum" is the only one, suitably, who doesn't have filled-in eyes, giving her that dazed-crazed 'I've been really busy today' look. The little feet, the detail of "Dad's" beard (he wears a perpetual 5 o'clock shadow) that was drawn along with the narrative that "Daddy's looking that way".... it's very special, the most detailed drawing she has ever drawn. Our Keep Artwork box is filled to the brim already but this one, too, is a keeper.


Exhibit B:

An sms came in while I was making the salad, talking with my sister in-law. It was from an old friend, who had given me the name of someone he knew at a major, well-known Australian publishing house. And I was shaking as I read, "Well congrats, Kiddo, X and Y were impressed. Sounds like 'Mind, Body & Spirit' might get back to you. Keep me posted!"  Very EEEEK! I actually let out a sob then an expletive, to the excited amusement of my dear SIL. At around 9pm, another not completely unrelated email landed in my inbox - sometimes my emails go the long way around cyberspace, it had been sent almost five hours earlier - and it was from a potential agent I was put in contact with and had sent my work to the previous day (expecting to be passed along to someone else, not taken up by him per se), and in the email, the agent said he was keen to look further into my work but if I could just give him six weeks..... Er.... Okay! Sure! Can do *that sound was me dropping to the floor again to do a shrieky-kick-dance*

Swings and round-abouts. Swings and round-abouts.

Thank you again for being there to carry me through. Your comments boosted me greatly
*grabbing collective blogosphere in a head-lock, giving it a knuckle-rub.... cue embarrassed shifting of feet*

Dear Ella

And away we go.

I got my first proper rejection from a publisher today. I knew it would come, I know they will continue. Over and over, like endless, unrepentant waves on a shore... Much the same as my realisation of the way the grief of losing you was going to work as I started to wake up in my new life seven years ago, a few months after you left.

You should be here tonight. I miss you tonight. Why? Why tonight out of all the other nights that have passed this year since your sixth birth day? Well, it's as random and unpredictable as what I expect your behaviour would be (as a child of this age). I was lighting a candle just before for today's Remembrance and it hit me. The candle was next to a photo of your sister as a baby. The shelf above has a photo of you, older than her in your photo. How is it? You passed each other by. She mentioned you again yesterday. It happens a lot and then peters out again, as her little mind comprehends that bit more. "Ella's my sister and she's in our family but we'll never see her again," her forlorn little voice trails off from the back seat of the car. Keep it together, you've got mascara on, I say to myself in the front.

So the night will wear on. We have a house full of family expected. I can't get motivated to clean the house and get the dinner on. I have to. My cheeks are flushed. My mind is on you. On the relentless rejections I am going to brace myself for in the lead-up to Christmas. Hey.... as I said, I knew it would happen.

It's time for me to release myself from this project a little, so that I can cope with it. It's not a matter of toughening up. I've lost you. I'm tough. I'm as resilient as stone.

But now, to find a way for my head and my heart to work separately, for I am not ever severing myself from my journey with you. But now, the book becomes a part of the world. Just as when you came and left again, you very clearly showed me you were not ever mine alone to own.

I love you, baby girl. And along with those 12 other little lost beginnings of life of mine, as well as the countless more around the globe, I remember you today. As always.

Still Real

Today, I am clinging to this song. "Still Real" by the Australian group, George, and fronted by the unbelievable Katie Noonan.

The weekend was amazing. In one of those planets-aligning moments (actually Venus is in retrograde, as of Saturday I think...... hmmmmm perhaps something is stirring out in the heavens for all of us? Is anyone else experiencing a slight easing of pressure in their lives, ever so slight? Like letting out the top button of your jeans after Christmas lunch??), I found myself swanning around in "free" time. I know!! I was overjoyed. I spent the weekend very close to my book and was able to speed through a very trying section. I even had Sunday dinner cooked for me by the two dearest chefs in the house - Steve and the LGBB whipped up chicken schnitzels, broccoli, peas, carrots and just about the best mash potato I've ever tasted. And in true fashion, Steve now refuses to tell me how he did it. Addaboy. Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.

Anywho. Back to the song. It just seems to perfectly fit with what I'm facing this week.... I am at the final couple of chapters of the book. I cannot believe it. I'm euphoric, scared, elated, feeling very bittersweet about it. And like an undercurrent that incessantly nips at my heels, I have an awareness that there are a couple of entities that are just waiting, hoping, willing me to finish and put myself out there with my neck on the chopping block, as if presenting myself for their beheading.

So I'm also wondering, then, how it is for others.... I ask you:
What is truth and what is a lie? If someone tells you something and you have a different recollection or perspective of the same event they are talking about, does that make the other person a liar? Or do you see that they simply speaking their truth and it just doesn't match yours? Do you tend to have one rule or do you change how you feel about what are lies and what is truth, depending on who you are judging or what they are talking about?

This song, to me, speaks to that. And I find it a great comfort.

Still Real

I wonder how long I can sustain this mystery
I wonder how we thought we'd get here without strife
I try to recall the beauty that brought us here
And I cling to that, I cling to that, I cling to that for my life

They say they understand the turmoil that unsettles you
And I say you just fulfill your end of the deal and I'll fulfill mine
Once we reveal ourselves we're so quick, so quick to analyse
I just want you to be free and enjoy this ride
So go on I'll tell you it's alright
Go on, please tell me you're fine
Don't ever let them get you down
'cause everything that really, really matters
is still real
I'd love to see you shine with every possible radiance
And ignore any thoughts that weren't planted by good
And let intention motivate and stimulate, that is all
And let the cloud that hangs above drift off into the sunset night
So go on I'll tell you it's alright
Go on, please tell me you're fine
Don't ever let them get you down
'cause everything that really, really matters
is still real

george - Still Real from SeanieG on Vimeo.

Career change

NERRRD.
Whaaat? You haven't seen an obedient dog with a dog on its head before?

I'm currently in the process of getting police checks done.

It appears Jazz is about to embark on the next stage of her 'career', from backyard marauder and general lay-about to aged care petting dog. Very respectable.

I'm not quite sure if I'm meant to be doing the police checks for me or her, come to think of it.

But the managers of the local residential aged care facility took one look at her today, covered in sludge from nose to haunches (she fell into a blind puddle en route to her thrown ball at the park across the way), and still wanted her to come back. She sat, dropped and looked dutifully doleful in a "please pat me, I'm starved of love" kind of way. They warned me that the elderly - specifically, the residents in the dementia wing - have a habit of asking the same questions repetitively and was I okay with that. I assured them I would leave my bat for smacking over the back of the head at home.

Jazz already has experience working with the elderly

"The Elderly" has warmed to her since these early days

Sort of...

Is it possible for The Elderly to look any more disdainful?

No, really, I volunteered at an aged care residence when I was a teenager. I adored it. I adored all the people. There was one woman I particularly remember, she was 98 years old and I never saw her without a full face of makeup. She was gorgeous, inside and out. So refined. She would invite me to her room for cups of tea. Somehow she had wrangled a double room for herself (she had been a resident there for a number of years, I was told, and used to share the room with her husband who had passed away some years before) and it was kitted out like a beautiful bedsit. All her ornate furniture surrounded her, there were pictures on the wall, she had a beautiful dresser and a little tea-for-two setup, complete with fine china, in the window. It was magical. From what I could ascertain, she did not really mingle with the other residents, who used to congregate in the depressing lounge and dining rooms on stiff-back chairs, not talking to each other but just ... together. They would invariably light up when I walked in the door once a week.

I gave up my Saturdays for six months as a 13 year-old and I would get there under my own steam. I rode my bike (which had no gears, I'll add) there and back every week - it was a good 5-10km's (Wonga Park to North Croydon, if you know the area anyone reading... no paved footpaths and no flat bits either, I might point out too!). I'm not entirely sure what lured me there each weekend. Perhaps the honour of listening to their stories and respecting them as individuals who had had to give up their possessions and their lives as they knew them, basically. I found it really heart-rending, even as a youngster, seeing my grandparents in a parallel existence - they were still alive and (not necessarily well, but fending for themselves) in a relatively palatial home that they ran on their own. I never wanted to imagine their end to be as lonely and bleak as this.

As fate would have it, my grandfather would die less than seven years after my stint in volunteer work - he spent a week unconscious in hospital after suffering a major stroke at home. And my grandmother, who would end up a major character in my book even though we were not close when she was alive, would die (five years after that) of a cardiac arrest very suddenly right before my eyes, also while still living at home and looking after herself.

The nursing home around the corner here has been calling me for the past three years. On a whim today, on our way home from the park, tired, wet, thirsty (and that was just me, let alone the LGBB and Jazz) and not at all looking like we'd impress anyone, I ventured in. And was warmly welcomed.

Will keep you posted how this goes! Who knows, Jazz could whack some poor sweetheart off her rocker on the first day. Her career as petting pet might be extremely short-lived. But I have a feeling that I, if not Lolly along with me, will become a regular visitor there, if for nothing else than wandering through for a couple of hours a week to give a wave and share a yarn... quite possibly the same yarn each week. Gorgeous.


 This is a blog hop!

The face of my manuscript

Well, here it is. On the surface, it looks worse for wear. But on the inside, it is becoming meatier and more meaningful than ever. This here is the final page of the recently re-posted 'woman in the supermarket' story. Now, while I thought it was "pretty orright" and so did other commenters here... it hadn't received the fine tooth-comb from my Editor. Let me just say, it is already vastly different, even from the re-post I did last week. Eeek! This is going to be a long and winding road, this 'ere editing stage.

Thanks to Dad's - my Editor ;) - gentle and frank guidance, I am teasing out the many concepts that I have managed to capture from my head and plonk on paper. Now, I am being challenged to really confront what I have really been writing. They are no longer anonymous and enormously suggestive concepts... they are turning into compelling personal insights. Just when I thought I had explained myself fully and completely, I discovered I had barely scratched the surface of what I had really meant.

tau·tol·o·gy

/tɔˈtɒlədʒi/ Show Spelled[taw-tol-uh-jee] 

–noun, plural -gies. 1. needless repetition of an idea, esp. in words other than those of the immediate context, without imparting additional force or clearness.

I am being challenged with my apparent love of tautologies and sentence fragments that hiccup throughout the reader's train of thought. I am being pulled up left, right and centre on my technical structure. But most heartening, at the end of just about every chapter, I am receiving a "Wow. Powerful chapter." This is no easy feat to achieve with my wordy, worldly, well-read and learned Papa! So I am buoyed greatly to continue with renewed confidence about the whole project.

And although it is a hard slog - facing these words and these chapters yet again - I am loving every moment of the process.

Added to this, I received last night a most prized email address passed on to me by a mutual acquaintance (the best kind to have!). So I now have the contact details of the Marketing Director of a prominent Australian publishing house with an internationally recognised name, who is waiting for me to send an extract.

Excuse me while I go and vomit and then faint a little bit  try to maintain my composure but fail miserably  keep working hard so I don't keep her waiting too long.

Mother Heart

Naomi over at Seven Cherubs is doing her first linky today! It's one I am happy to join, for it is about mothers, mothering and thoughts, tips and ideas on same. Who doesn't know much about that when they do it day in, day out?  ;)

More's the point, I sometimes get to this end of the week and want to tear my hair out. Sometimes not. But sometimes.... I do. And I'm not ashamed to say it.

So I have joined the Linky with my post already, if you would like to go take a look or join yourself with a post (old or new), let's see if we can't celebrate or discuss motherhood for a day a week. I know I often don't, which is quite strange, given it's my chosen career. Heh.

I still can't believe I get to say that. I just finished a read-through of my book last night and vividly recall the section where Steve and I had "that discussion".... the one that went, "I think we have to just face it. We're not going to have any more children. Ella was it. And now she's gone. So we can keep trying but we have to be realistic: we'll lose more babies than we'll ever have. If we have one ever again..."

It was a sobering discussion.

Anyhow! Enough from me! Go check out the links. And here's to having a great Thursday.

Mojo Monday

I've lost it, basically. My mojo, that is. The weather appears to have fallen flat on its own arse again today, after such a promising Sunday. Curses! *shaking fist at sky* It's chilly and overcast and dark again today. Not an entirely awful day to be indoors working on the book, though, one must concede.

So, given that I am channelling all available creativity into my writing 'offline' once again, I have decided that in lieu of an inspired post today, I am going to backtrack what I believe is a very important interpersonal exchange which I wrote about 12 months ago. It now forms a short, sharp chapter in the first half of my book. When I wrote it, and then posted it here, I had a pang of worry and guilt.... I was writing reflectively, an honest account of what I did and what I said to a complete stranger. What would others think of me for being so brazen in my youth?! Not that I blame youth alone.

I'm interested to see what you think about this one.....

The Woman In The Supermarket (originally posted here on Sunny Side Up)
This is something that has come to me time and time again, in the course of writing my book. On the first sweep through the draft, there was nowhere for it. I left it out.

This morning, I was woken at 4.45am and put to work, writing it out. Strictly unedited and still unsure where it fits (but fit, it will!) in the story, I thought it pertinent to put here too. It is bold-faced, unashamedly Tigger-esque Me. The "me" I was before Ella.

The passage below reminds me so very much of the exchanges I was then forced to endure in the years following Ella's death. Things that were said to me, even after we had brought the LGBB home safely, along the lines of "Oh cheer up, you've got what you always wanted now! Come on, chin up, pip-pip."

One night after work, I was shopping in the supermarket. A woman, not much older than me, was standing nearby. She was selecting fruit and looking rather downtrodden and sullen, as if she might burst into tears at any moment. I felt so cheerful and happy that the contrast was really evident to me. In “getting over” our missed miscarriage – surely just a mindset, one that I determined would not “bring me down” and so, therefore, I had just decided not to be glum about it anymore – I felt at the time that I had just come out of what was surely the worst my life would throw at me. And I felt able to conquer anything with my perky optimism.

In all of my youthful wisdom, I smiled as I stood alongside her and said, “Ah, come on, it can’t be that bad!” I was attempting to make her smile. I thought she just needed some “cheering up.”

“Mind your own bloody business!” she snapped, hardly able to get the words out and instantly welling up with tears.

Immediately, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. I hastily left the grocery department without further word and spent the rest of my shopping trip feeling ghastly that I had upset the woman even more. Before I had even finished and paid for my groceries, I had already scolded myself countless times and wondered about her position – did she have an ill mother or father in hospital? Did her beloved cat just get run over by a car? Had her husband just left her? Of course, as our miscarriage count rose, over the years the scenarios I pondered (while I cringed) included any number of fertility concerns, pregnancy loss and even infant death. Yes, I had been extremely short-sighted in my delivery of such a well-intended but downright out of line remark.

Many years later, I would be reminded that even these sorts of absent-minded runnings off in my mind, about matters which were of no concern or business whatsoever of mine, were not useful or respectful to do to anybody. Nowadays, I diligently practice not thinking this way about others whenever I catch myself beginning to do it because it is really incorrect of me.

In her direct delivery, the woman in the supermarket had taught me something huge. Something about a person’s personal space and permitted experiences. And something I would muse about on and off over many years, serving as a reminder to be mindful not to delve into concerns that were not mine.

Looking back on the exchange, almost ten years later, I can see how utterly incorrect it was for me to enter into anybody’s personal space in that way (let alone a stranger’s). I am not saying it was wrong to strike up a conversation, more so in the manner in which I did it. Although well intended, there is little doubt that I was not permitted to invalidate someone like that. Especially if I thought that by doing so, I would be helping her to "snap out of it." 

How did I know the extent of her troubles, the depths of her despair? How did I even assume to know her situation? If I had been apprised of it, did that give me any more right to say what I did? In retrospect, I think absolutely not.

I have thought often about this exchange as a model of my Tigger-esque character at the time. It is obvious to me now that I had so much to learn, in terms of relating to people in their time of crisis. Even when I thought all of my positive, all-knowing “twenty-somethingness” would not only see me through, it could also instantly fix the woes of anyone around me (ugh) whenever I spread my feelings of joy, the truth was that I could not truly become benevolent without first experiencing bare-faced hardships of my own. “Hardships” that would send me to the absolute brink of my own desperate despair, some through which I did not even want to live.

Somehow, even if it is as simple as deciding not to be miserable anymore (ironically, in my experience, the sentiment is usually delivered by those who have never actually been through a miscarriage themselves), I have to maintain that it is still nobody's business how someone else grieves or carries themselves while they try their damnedest to get through the toughest trial of their life. This extends to any number of personal tragedies or potholes in the road - in no way am I implying that it only fits with anything fertility- or childbirth-related. But these are just my biggest trials in life so far. Trials that have, hopefully, enabled me to extend my rules of engagement with anyone who is going through something tough - be it divorce, death of a parent or other loved one, job loss... Mine is not to measure their pain against any I've experienced and then categorise it as more or less important or worthy. Mine is to simply listen and empathise. I'm still learning this one and being very patient with myself when I trip up (for I do) whilst in the throes of supporting another.

If one thing is certain, I am actually so very grateful for my experiences. It has taught me much about humility and respect, honour and empathy for others. If my lessons had not been so overwhelming and persistent, I might not have received the message so fully. I am grateful and relieved that I do see how much I have accomplished in terms of this, particularly when I look back on the exchange I had with the woman in the supermarket.