Aspiring Novelist

October 20, 2024

20 Year High School Reunion

Last night I had my 20 year high school reunion. Initially I had zero interest in going. Since the last time I saw anyone from high school I have accomplished nothing. At least, nothing of note worth attending my 20 year reunion. The only reason I did attend was because my sorta-kinda-cousin “bullied” me into it. If she asks, I’m there. Plus, they needed (at minimum) 40 people to attend and they were having a hard time selling the minimum tickets required for the venue. (Out of a class of 200 I should add.) So, I’m very aware that I am not alone when it comes to wanting to skip it.

There were quite a few things I realized while I was there. The primary one being “I’m really an unfriendly person.” I recognized so many faces, even though they had dramatically changed from the last time I had seen them, I just didn’t remember names. It also became very clear that even during high school I didn’t talk to anyone. I knew these people for 4 years and never once took the time to get to know them. Which is really kind of shitty. I had people come up to me and say lovely things to me, but I approached no one but my cousin. In high school, she was the social butterfly. She really had a foot in a bunch of different groups. As Josh and I sat in a corner by ourselves, watching everyone chat, I started to wish I had been like her.

Another thing I realized was how much I have forgotten from my time in high school. What really concerns me up is not knowing if it’s from the grief slowly chipping away at them, or if I was so self absorbed as a kid that I never took the time to see or hear other people’s experiences. Yet that takes me back to the first point that I was just really an unfriendly person. Which is weird because I’m not. I’m just insanely, cripplingly shy. Which most people find strange since I am a huge attention whore.

I had one of these gentleman come up to me and say I looked very familiar but he couldn’t remember why. I said “I did all of the school plays?” He shook his head and replied that that wasn’t it. The only reason I went there first is because I was a huge theatre nerd and participated in this one theatre class that would perform 1 act plays for the English classes at my school each school period, once a month, for 3 years. I was genuinely voted (twice I might add) most likely to be famous. Both times with two different women. One being another theatre friend of mine and the other with this one girl, to this day, I have no idea how she wound up with the win. She had a cute personality but… she never did anything “big” that would have warranted that. She didn’t “perform.” At least not outside of the one math class where she was my table mate. There she mocked our middle eastern teacher’s accent. Which, at the time, I found fucking hilarious. Now it’s super insensitive and ignorant. I feel so much guilt for how ruthless this girl was to this teacher, and I wonder if she continued to teach after or if this racist little girl scared her away.

Another thought I had was how immature I am. Instead of mingling and saying hello to these familiar faces, I hid behind my boyfriend and played pokemon go on my phone. Instead of asking these people how things have been and, I don’t know, getting to know them now. That is one character flaw from high school I still have. I’m not an “adult” by any other means than in my age. I am still cripplingly shy and think that my presence isn’t wanted. Or that I am some sort of burden who needs to shut up.

The final epiphany, one in which I am certain I am not alone in, was how little I’ve accomplished since then. Everyone else seemed corporate or successful in some way. All I’ve done is get married, take care of my dying mother and husband, and finish editing a book. That’s it. I haven’t left this shitty little town or done anything I said I would achieve. I had such big dreams of becoming an actor or a published writer. Instead all I was able to “achieve” wAs perform in some insignificant community theatre and write a blog on the internet. That maybe gets 10 views a month.

I am a firm believer that life isn’t measured in perceived “successes” but in life lived. It is in the relationships we make or in the lives we touch. A “good life” to me is one in which, upon my death, I can look back and go “I’d do it again.”

All-in-all I had fun. Ate entirely too many pretzel bites at the snack buffet, realize how little my life is, and how this is probably the last time I’ll see any of these folks again. (Apart from my sorta-kinda-cousin.)

_____________________

If you’re curious as to why I say “sorta-kinda” is because when we went to high school we had zero familial relationship. We just happened to enjoy theatre class. The sorta part comes in when I started dating my husband in my senior year. He saw her name in one of my school play programs and asked me if she was related to so-and-so. At the time I had no idea, but she is in fact related to my husband’s step-mom’s sister’s husband. It’s weird how small this community is and how there are threads that weirdly connect us to people in our community in this roundabout way. My in-laws being a very prominent thread. If you’ve ever heard of the podcast “Notorious Bakersfield” that’s my cousin.

July 30, 2024

Polyamory is Weird

If someone were to ask me, “Is Polyamory weird?” I would say, without hesitation, yes. It is weird. Our entire society is shown examples of what a “healthy” relationship is in monogamy. The mechanisms of which have been drilled deep into our minds that we have no idea it has tainted the perceptions of how a relationship could and can function. Which is fine… It just limits possibility.

When my husband and I first opened up our marriage it wasn’t because I wanted to date people. On the contrary. I am someone who can easily separate the “carnal” from the emotional. It’s very, very easy to do. My husband on the other hand did not find it as simple. In any manner of speaking. It is the primary factor why I wanted us to have an open marriage.

The only way he would agree to it was if I “dated” other people. His logic was that “dating” would “slow me down” and he wouldn’t feel compelled to “keep up” as if it is some kind of race.

I didn’t want that. At all. If I date someone emotions ABSOLUTELY come into play. I’m getting to know someone, I’m sharing my life when they share theirs. We have intimate dinners where we discuss our hopes for the future. There is no way to avoid romantic entanglements. But, having that was better than what we had been doing. Which was just cheating and lying to each other.

As one would expect from dating other people, Josh came into my orbit and has not left. Nor do I want him to. Ever. It’s just that… I am someone that can’t casually date. If I consider someone worthy of my attention and I bring them into my life, they’re there unless they forcibly remove themselves. (Or, if there is something we just can’t talk through.) I don’t know why Charlie (my husband) wasn’t aware of this. He is the result of this very behavior.

I didn’t like the idea of dating because if I shared anything on social media my friends and family would assume I was trying to replace my husband with someone new. I didn’t want that. Because that was never my intention. (Ugh this topic makes me so mad.) Most people can’t grasp the nuance of polyamory or that every relationship is very different. They only see 1+1=2. The end. No other questions. This meeting is over.

I am almost certain that that is how my in-laws viewed it.

Now, they have been incredible. Truly. I have not been treated any different, nor have they treated Josh or Tony any other way than kind. They’re truly accepting. But… there is always implicit bias. The kind we don’t even know we’re doing as it is occurring.

The other day my mother-in-law and I were chatting on the phone and she said something off-hand that I know she genuinely meant nothing by it. She was being sincere and kind, but it was hurtful. She told me to write a story about Charlie’s and my experience with ALS and how everything weirdly fell into place. “And you loved each other like brothers,” was what she had said during her suggestion. In the moment I was thunderstruck… But I didn’t have the energy or the time to explain how polyamory or “love” works.

That’s the bane of living an “alternative” lifestyle. We’re forever having to acquiesce to other people’s perceptions. At least the ones like me who avoid confrontational conversations at all costs.

For me it all boils down to: is that what she thinks I felt for him? One might argue that that just shows that you cared for each other. Yes. But brotherly love is different than romantic love. For instance, I love Tony (my husband’s boyfriend) like a brother. I love my husband like a lover. There are two very distinctions between the two. At least in a logical sense. They carry different emotional weight.

Anyway… none of it matters in the end. I know my truth and it is such, regardless of how someone else perceives it. I just wish charlie was alive so I could say “See! I was right!”

July 23, 2024

Read It To Me Once More…

There is no way to deny that I am a vain person. When I guest hosted this facebook “show” I would love to watch the entire episode, focusing primarily on me and my reactions. There was nothing I enjoyed more than watching myself. Or so my husband would joke.

This past weekend I competed in the second challenge of the “2024 Flash Fiction” competition. My assignment this go around was: genre – Thriller (that’s a first for me), setting – a black tie event, and item – wet suit. Initially when I read the specifics of my group… I was at a loss. I had never written a “thriller” before and… In reality they kind of handed us our stories on a silver platter. Well, there will be a lot of spy stories in the vein of James Bond. At least, that’s what came to my mind first.

In the morning, after receiving the assignment, my mind exploded with a fireworks show of ideas. Ones in which I genuinely debated submitting them to the competition for fear that someone would steal them. Which is a silly thing to think. Of course they are. There are no original thoughts left to think. Every story has been told. All that matters is style and content details. Someone can have a brilliant idea for a story, but if they lack the chops to do it then their narrative will be secondary.

At the behest of my BF I wrote a draft that day (a first for me) and then spent the drive, the following day, to Santa Barbara (to visit my niece) editing my submission. This was a first for me. Usually I wait until the hour before the deadline to bang a story out. I work well under pressure, is what I always say. And what I have since discovered is that particular character flaw is a symptom of ADHD. Fun!

While I edited my piece I discovered this feature available in the iOS Microsoft Word App. An A.I. will read it to you, like an audio book. I was hesitant at first. I thought the idea was silly. Why would I need to do something like that? Well, let me tell you, I fell in love with this feature. Hearing my own words back to me, gave me chills. And of course my first thought was “Damn, I’m a good writer.”

I joke with my BF that I got a boner from hearing my own story. Which… is true from a certain point of view. It was just a mental/emotional one.

The following day I dove head first into listening to the A.I. read my novel. Again… Chills. It had a beautiful pace and rhythm to it. What’s even more amazing is when a sentence didn’t quite work, I could stop, revise, and then have it read it to me again with the change. Phenomenal.

I’m sure I’m late to this party. Most of the time I shy away from these features because I feel like it detracts from own “skills.” However, what I found is that hearing my story from another person changed everything in terms of my future editing process.

My one complaint… The audio of the woman narrator versus the male… very telling. The woman was audibly smiling. The man sounded like a balding 45 year old with a gut and jowls.

July 16, 2024

Saga Of A Completed Manuscript

I’m sure most, if not all, have gotten tired of reading the phrase/sentiment “I miss my husband” in almost every one of my posts since his passing. At least, I would be if I were on the other end. But I’m also a heartless dick. If you are not exhausted with it, continue on.

On Friday I finished editing my novel. THE novel I have been editing and honing into a polished gem ever since I completed my first draft on my husband’s birthday in 2009. For those of you who can’t do some quick math, that is nearly 15 years working on this bitch. I have started and stopped countless times, either because life got in the way or I got in my way. The only credit I can lend to these individual endeavors is that whenever I would pick it back up, with all the enthusiasm of a teen girl at her fave artists concert, I would start in a new place. The logic being that maybe working on another piece wouldn’t wear me out or overwhelm me as it had before. Ultimately I would give up all over again from the aforementioned reasons.

At one point around 2012-2014 I decided that I was going to give up on being a writer. After each failure it wore away at my self-esteem to the point that this remained the only logical step. In addition it was just destroying my self-worth. Because I wasn’t hitting this high bar I set for myself, I thought that I was less than trash. To stop it, I gave up on that dream. I couldn’t get my shit together. Every time I tried, I failed.

Yet time does wonderful things for my ADHD brain. I tend to forget. Granted, I didn’t forget that I had given up on my desire to be a published author, I just decided that if I were to write it would be for me. To have fun! Which I did. I would enter the NYC Midnight contests for short stories or their flash fiction challenges. These little exercises tested my abilities and showed me that I may not be “THE BEST” I was still good. Published good? Maybe not. But I still had the talent.

For whatever reason I returned to my work in progress (WIP) a few years ago, right around when Charlie was diagnosed. I don’t remember the reason. All I know is that while on a road trip with my polycule I forced them to listen to my WIP. As my bf and I took turns reading it, I was astounded how much of it was already complete. Had I really done that much, I kept asking myself. Clearly I had. It was all there in black and white. Just a few short minutes before we got home I finished reading it to them. I felt this sense of pride. It was good. There were still inconsistencies and a couple chapters that needed a lot of work, but overall it was nearly there. I could see the finish line, however fuzzy it may have been.

When we finally got home, my husband said the one thing that, out of all of our wonderful memories of us together, this one shined the brightest. My husband looked up at me and said “Your story is really good, dear.” It came from nowhere, unprompted, and nearly knocked me off my feet. I said “Thank you” not sure if he was being nice for nice sake (he was DYING afterall…) and he reaffirmed “I mean that. You need to finish it.”

On July 12th, 2024 (12/7 the reverse of when I finished my first draft on 7/12) I finally finished editing my manuscript. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. I was elated and in disbelief simultaneously. I have dedicated so much of my identity into this ONE story that it was weird that it no longer existed in it’s original form. Immediately I wanted to call and tell my husband. Then… it all set in. Instead I told my BF and then my brother-husband. They were proud of me, but it didn’t fill the void I craved. So, I shared it on all my socials to lackluster response. My own high expectations ruining it of course.

To “celebrate” my achievement, I decided to leave work early and pick up my pre-orders from the Star Wars Unlimited TCG. On my way… I hit my husbands speed-dial on my car and called him. His familiar voice answered and I immediately cried. The line beeped and I barely got out “Hey punkin, I finished editing my book.” I was a mess the entire way to the store. Thank Taylor that it’s so hot, at least that gave some excuse to why my face was wet and red.

Now, I am left with the next step: writing a query letter. It’s terrifying and exhilarating all at once.

At family dinner on Sunday, I told my in-laws and they asked what was next. I told them the auto response (as shown above) and then told them my dream scenario. I said, that if I did magically get it published I would want, more than anything, a blurb on it with my husbands quote. “It’s really good, dear.”