That's the funny thing about writing, you create this thing that takes you months and maybe years of time and emotion and effort. Then you edit and cut and send it to friends. They slice and dice it too and tell you where it sucks. Then you rewrite and recreate and something better is born.
Then you send it to editors and agents and publishers and get shot down again and again and again. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would do it. Then I remember you. Readers are the reason I write. I write because I want to challenge the way you think or to let you know you aren't alone. I write to find human connection with people I don't even know. I want to give you part of me because I love you.
Below is the first page of my second manuscript. I'll post the revised version after my writing buddies take a crack at it so you can see what I mean about butchering.
Hugs and thanks for being my readers!
Where I Find Me
Chapter
1: In Which I Am Angry and Swearing
I never
knew that your whole entire insides could hurt just from heartache. That sounds
stupid but a broken heart is truly toxic to your whole body. The only time it’s
bearable is if I’m sleeping, when I can get to sleep, or when I’m running. When
I run, I can take myself passed the point of being able to think, able to
remember. Then I can create a whole new hurt.
This
summer, the New Life of Newly Single Jaisa Jamison, has been filled with
running as soon as I wake, perfecting the art of folding towels at Apex, the
only gym in my hometown, Landview, Nebraska (I’ve found keeping my hands busy
with brainless tasks has an awesome numbing affect as well), trying to fake a
bright face for my dad, little brother, Bryce, and best friend, Lydia, and then
running myself into exhaustion so that I can sleep. It’s a routine. It’s become
safe, almost comfortable. Tomorrow I have to go back to high school for my
senior year.
F that.
###
I try to find my inner calm spirit in the Sunday yoga
class my mom and I go to together. This is kind of the one thing that we’ve
kept up from our old routine of when she lived at home. It’s been almost three
years since my parents got divorced; and it’s still weird meeting my mom at the
gym for yoga, rather than us just getting in the car or riding bikes here
together.
Mom usually gets to yoga before me and sets up my mat
beside hers. She’s wearing a bandana tied like a headband today. Her yoga pants
are light blue, purple, and white tie-dye that would make anyone but my mom
look ridiculous or like they have a huge butt. But they fit her. She’s soft and
pastel, small and muted.
“Hi, Baby,” she says. She’s seated on her mat. I sit
beside her on the one she laid out for me. “Look how great you look! Each time
I see you, you’re more and more—” her smile falters, like if she says I’m
anything less than perfect I’ll crumble. “Radiant.”
“I look better, Mom,” I say.
“I think you have always been lovely, but yes, today you
look exceptionally well.”
I want to roll my eyes, but I just say thank you and hope
class starts.
We close our eyes and are supposed to be readying our
bodies and minds for practice; however, I can’t stop thinking about how I wish
Mom would just yell at me. Why does she have to pretend like everything is
flowers and fairies? I got dumped. I ran terribly in track, possibly costing
myself a scholarship to run in college—my only ticket out of this boring-awful
town. I barely ate, barely slept, barely talked to anyone the last few months.
If I hadn’t been running and Dad, Bryce, and Lydia hadn’t been forcing more
than grunts out of me, I’d have become a hermit.
But I keep coming to yoga. And we keep having the same
“oh, you’re so beautiful” hello. Why can’t she set aside “we’re all special”
bullshit for her third graders and be real with me?
I might be better, but I’m not freaking radiant.
###
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