DON'T MISS THE ANNOUNCEMENT RE UNMASKED AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST!!!
Hi, Renée here:
October's winner for the WEP challenge, GRAVE MISTAKE, Rebecca Douglass, guests for us today. Her winning entry was humorous and fun. Just what we needed after such a crazy year.
Congratulations Rebecca. Thank you for writing such an inspiring guest post.
Writing
Through My Grief
It may be a little strange that someone who mostly writes humorous stories, and is being honored for a story that made people laugh, is here to write about grief, but here I am, trying to explain the inexplicable.
Many of you know that my husband of 26 years was killed in a cycling accident in May. That the accident profoundly changed every aspect of my life is an understatement. It affected my writing in ways large and small, putting a complete halt to it at times, while at others writing has been an anchor to help me through this horrible time.
Everything from washing the dishes to raking the leaves felt changed by the accident, so why should writing be any different? A hole in one’s chest does make it harder to write. Because what I mostly write is humor, it felt like an extra burden sometimes. Was it right, or even possible, to keep writing goofy stories between grief bursts? And yet I knew I couldn’t stop writing, and writing light feels a great deal safer right now than writing dark.
For several weeks after the accident, I didn’t write anything but the most personal of journal entries and kept looking at the heap of my current manuscript as though it was a creature from outer space—beyond comprehension and a little scary. I wasn’t even sure if I could, or should laugh. A friend straightened me out about that, reminding me that this loss doesn’t change who I am, and who I am is a person who sees the absurdity of life all around me, even at inopportune moments.
The call for entries for the IWSG anthology gave me a reason to start to write fiction again. Over the course of the next couple of months, I wrote my story, one sentence at a time. On a good day, I got two sentences. I had no idea if that would lead to a story that was worth submitting (I still don’t, though I submitted the story), but that wasn’t the point. The point was to prove to myself that, broken though I was, I was still a writer. The point was to hear the voices in my head again, the ones that were wholly fiction.
Eventually, I was able to write whole paragraphs at a time, and the story was completed. The true miracle, though, was that when the story was finished, I picked up my novel and began to edit again. To my amazement, it felt good. And I was able to write the funny bits, find the humor in the situations I dumped the main character into, and make progress, albeit slowly. Again, I made the commitment to work for at least a minute or two every day.
Yes, you read that right: a minute or two. For me, that has been the key: writing or editing every day, giving myself purpose, but limiting my expectations. Writing under some difficult circumstances (by headlamp in a campsite cold enough to need a down jacket and gloves!) seems to have helped all the more. I’ve lost my anchor in the biggest sense, but writing has managed to endure. I am deeply grateful for the gift that is creativity, and for the community of writers who have helped me hang onto it.
I’m not who I was in April, but I am still a writer.
~~~***~~~
Thanks so
much for your inspiring post, Rebecca. And congratulations again on your win
for GRAVE MISTAKE.
The 4th book in Rebbeca's Pismawallops PTA Mystery Series:
Death by Library
You can find anything at your local library… even a corpse?
When things turn deadly in the library stacks, JJ needs some
answers fast, before she loses her job—or her life. She’s determined to learn
everything about the victim, and for once the library doesn’t hold all the
answers. JJ and Kitty may have to face the ultimate peril: a visit to Mrs.
Halsey, the oldest—and crankiest—person on the island.
Smashwords (all ebook formats)
After a lifetime of reading, and a decade or more
of slinging books at the library and herding cats with the PTA, Rebecca began
to turn her experiences into books of her own, publishing her first in 2012.
That failed to quiet the voices in her head, but seemed to entertain a number
of readers, so she wrote some more, which generated still more voices. Despite
the unlimited distractions provided by raising sons to the point of leaving
home (and preparing to move without forwarding address if necessary to retain
that empty nest), not to mention the mountains that keep calling (very hard to
resist the urging of something the size of the Sierra Nevada), she has managed
to pen a total of 9 books plus a novella (which we suppose makes 10).
There's been a lot of disappointment at the cancellation of the December Challenge so, if you still wish to post for the
Challenge, UNMASKED – please do.
Then let us know in the Comments of the December 1st post with a link so we can visit. POST ANY TIME IN DECEMBER. This is an unstructured challenge - no sign up, no winners, but the usual lot of fun leading up to the end of 2020 and our anticipation for a much better 2021.
Renée for the team:
Please Share the Love!
@RebeccaDouglass #WEPGRAVEMISTAKE #WEPwinner #guestpost https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2020/11/wepff-winner-of-october-challenge-grave.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner, @OlgaGodim #amwriting #writingchallenge
@RebeccaDouglas #WEPGRAVEMISTAKE #WEPwinner Writing Through My Grief #guestpost https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2020/11/wepff-winner-of-october-challenge-grave.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner, @OlgaGodim #amwriting #writingchallenge
@RebeccaDouglas #WEPGRAVEMISTAKE #WEPwinner Writing Through My Grief #guestpost https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2020/11/wepff-winner-of-october-challenge-grave.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner,
@OlgaGodim #amwriting #writingchallenge
