There is no word for what I am now. When my husband died-suddenly at thirty-six- I became a widow. When my parents died - a car wreck when I was sixteen - my brother and I became orphans. There is no word for a mother who loses her child. Is this because losing a child is so wrong, so against the forces of nature? Or because no single word can adequately express the anguish of such a loss?
When I re-read it, I realized what it was: it's the opening of the novel that by a long and convoluted process became Chasing the Tail Lights.
You see, when I originally came up with the characters, this was going to be an adult novel. It dealt with abortion and divorce and gay marriage and a number of other things. Lucy was 34 and Tony was 38. I wrote the snippet above as a beginning and then sat back to think about the book. While I did this, a lot of plot came to me, but I kept getting back to why Tony and Lucy were so close. And when I came up with that backstory, it became so interesting and so involved, I knew I needed to write it as its own novel. And Tail Lights was born....
And here's my second random snippet. This one was found under obsession.doc.
Obsession. The very word leaves the taste of darkness on the tongue. Ob-sess-ion: a word that is all black velvet, red wine and starry skies. The hissing of a viper, poised to strike, poison skewering the heart. To obsess is to be in the throes of madness. Not always a bad thing, of course, but it is unusual for any obsession to end with trumpets and roses. And certainly not mine.
This one was in fact the beginning of my story, Fireworks. I cut it out in the end because it weighted the story in a way that I didn't want it to be weighted. But I like it, and kept it in case I had another story in which I could use it. So far, I haven't. But maybe someday...
Those are both very indepth- mine don't tend to be quite so thought through. Thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteFascinating stuff, and even more fascinating that both are bits and pieces of some of your finished work that got discarded/re-thought/edited out. Most of my random thoughts do nothing but take up space on my hard drive (for now).
ReplyDeleteThis is National Make a Friend Day, so I came over from Tamara Hart Heiner's blog (where there's a linky) to meet you. I'm especially fascinated by your Chasing the Tail Lights. Is it published? I see here on your blog that there's nothing under About My Novels (maybe there's something wrong on my computer?!). I really like your first snippet here.
ReplyDeleteAnn Best, Author
How very neat to find the seeds that began real novels :) Nice! That first one was especially heart-wrenching.
ReplyDeleteI love that you've made these both into something. Looking at the origins of stories is fascinating to me.
ReplyDeletethank you for sharing and participating ^_^
Thanks for dropping by, everyone...
ReplyDeleteAnn, Chasing the Tail Lights is my WIP at the moment. I'm still deep in the revision trenches so I haven't put up the blurb yet. In fact, I haven't written the blurb yet...
They both are written well and have a different voice to them. The first one sounds interesting based on the later description of the idea even more but there were topics in there that I am always interested in. Well done for the blogfest.
ReplyDelete"it is unusual for any obsession to end with trumpets and roses"
ReplyDeleteI like that a lot.