Short and Sweet (and So Worth It)
An excerpt from an upcoming essay, and more
Hey!
Hope you've been well since last week. I am going to keep it short this week, because while the last 7 days have been full of activity, all of it is largely boring everyday activity. So just 3 things to let you know I'm thinking of you (including a new deleted scene!).
I finished the commissioned piece on grief. It was a doozy, but I'm glad I wrote it. It will be published on MamaMia this weekend (click the link to see some of my previous pieces published on the awesome Australian women's site). Here's an excerpt:
The night before the funeral, I assembled anecdotes from my relatives into a single eulogy befitting my memory of the woman with whom I’d spent every Wednesday for the first five years of my life. My breath was ragged as the pastor read it over the shrieks of the toddler out in the hallway and the squeals as the baby stood and bounced on my lap.
The children were a welcome distraction, some would say, and maybe I felt that way, too, at the time. But, through the shrieks and wails and chuckles and coos, it was impossible to see the full shape of my grief. In tending to my children, I never got to say a proper goodbye.
Heavy? Yes. Necessary? Also yes.
I wrote a little about writing on the blog this week. I do this from time to time, ruin reading by talking about how writing works, but I have learned a lot about how to take writing from good to great and I enjoy sharing the tidbits. This one is about how writers do that thing where you feel for the characters, root for them, and can't wait to find out what happens next in the story. I've gotten a lot better at this over the last several months, and I think you'll see it in the essay I quoted above.
And finally, it's been a bit since I sent you a deleted scene, and I think it's time. If I'm not mistaken, the last scene I sent showed a little of the history of how the law requiring the use of nursery wombs (and thereby forbidding people from carrying their own babies) was passed. This one shows Delia, the single opposing voice, in all her frustration and helplessness when it became clear she had no hope of convincing the Council to vote down the Ordinance.
The beauty of deleted scenes is that they're (hopefully) deleted before I've spent hours and hours editing them. They're often only on the first or second draft when they're cut, which means I'm having to remove all the editing and revision comments (like "WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN") before saving and sending it along to you. It's not a polished piece of work, which is kind of the beauty of drafting. It doesn't have to be.
One thing that moves a draft toward being publication ready is exactly what I write about in the blog - using closeness with the characters to place you in their bodies, not just in the same room with them. I wonder if you'll notice, as you read, places where I could have done a better job at this.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and I hope you have a great week. Let me know what you think!
See you soon,
P.S. I had this on my list to send yesterday, and then a whole bunch of incoming minutiae got in the way. Sorry I'm late.
P.P.S. Really, though, you might not see me next week. I'm buried in about 30,000 simultaneous projects, and I might not be able to come up for a breath until the end of the week. I'll try to at least send you the MamaMia link!
P.P.P.S. Thinking of moving to the Southern Hemisphere for the next few months. Hit me up if you know of a place to stay. Just until Boston is warm again. 😂