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working writer wending her way through the labyrinth that is self-publishing

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Writing and truth

Almost ended up with another very negative diatribe here about my frustrations, but luckily did not finish or publish...thanks to everything holy! A goddess or two must have been looking out for me!

Not sure what to write now that I've dialed it back. Shall I mention that said diatribe came from reading posts about other author's income? There--now you know. Jealousy, with all it's green and slimy yuckiness. Note to self: stay off those FB pages! You know the ones.

My newest book, Rosemary for Remembrance, is at formatters! This one was a long time in coming. I had over 400 pages written when I started over! Back in 2002 it began as a 'memoir' of sorts, about my parents' marriage after my father spent 3 and a half years as a POW held by the Japanese--I have his journals kept during that time and was bound and determined to write their story around them. ...But...my story had real life places and people who bore a striking resemblance to relatives of mine. I changed them, but it wasn't enough. And every day of writing was like a grind from hell. I put it away twice, three times, four and five times. This last time I didn't look at it again for over a year, and what I saw convinced me to scrap the entire thing. The writing was stilted, stiff and trying to be something it wasn't--I had concentrated too hard on exactness in describing places I knew--and the two main characters were seriously unlikeable (this from a friend who read it for me).

My new one, written quickly because it was RIGHT, has a paranormal element which is a theme that goes through all my books. It has my father's journals as a part of the story, but the main theme is nothing and I mean nothing like the real story of my parents. (not one relative can ask me, 'is, so and so me?' or, 'why did you depict the house that way when really it was...' or, I don't think that happened.'...You know what I'm talking about.) It will be listed in historical world war 2 fiction as well as some sort of paranormal, supernatural designation--(a past life nags and prods the characters as they try to sort out their marriage.) And just to be clear in an occult sort of way--I did ask my father if this was okay with him and I got the answer that it was. My father, a Leo, loved to hold forth about this and that, and although the diaries are very personal, I think he would like his writings to be out in the public. I did have some angst around this point, worrying that I hadn't done his writings justice, but I've gone ahead with it anyway. And as a bargain with my long dead father, I will make sure the WW2 museum in New Orleans gets a copy of his journals.




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