What a gift!

I received a miraculous gift. And I’d like to tell you about it because I could never have planned any of it.  Not that I could have planned most anything that’s happened in my life.

Never in  million years did I think while I was growing up on Long Island that I would move to California and consider myself a Los Angeles girl. Never in the eighteen years that I lived in Los Angeles did I ever remotely consider that I would move myself and my family to Charlotte. And yet here we are and it is wall meant to be. We are Southern.

Since leaving LaLa-land I’ve met world-class writers, illustrators and literary agents and I consider a number of them friends. Here these talented people share their successes and encourage those of us on the path to being published to keep going, while sharing guidance and tips on how to make our dreams come true.

And now I have opportunities to pay it forward. And I am thrilled and so excited about it that I am feeling high. Seriously, I am…and I have new glasses so it’s not my vertigo kicking in. ;P

My inability to have a second child left me with a bundle of love that I felt was going unused. I am not withholding love from my family, my daughter, or my friends, it’s just that there is an untapped glob of love that wanted to attach to someone, for a long time I thought it was for my twice miscarried child.

I carried that love like a clenched fist in my gut. I thought I was keeping it for another baby, but last night I realized that the love I was desperately clinging to was actually grief. And I felt that if I let go of that grief, the failed pregnancies, I’d lose the connection to the soul I thought at first wanted and then rejected me. If I let go of the grief, my saved love would disintegrate and the pregnancies would never have been.

My grief is very hard to talk about, so I didn’t. I went on with my day-to-day life, I made sure to thank God for the life I have, the good fortune, my home, my daughter, my marriage, my relationships with my family, the friends  that I have, the creativity that I have, the book that I wrote, and for the spark of other book ideas that are germinating inside me. I was thankful for the connections I had with other writers. I didn’t want to be greedy. I thanked God over and over for my daughter. I have friends who can never have children. I wanted to make sure God knew I know how good I have it. But still that pain lived in me. I had no scar to bear outwardly so I let it fester internally.

Then last night I received a miraculous gift. On 12-12-12, the fifth night of Hanukkah, I received a message that the baby I lost didn’t reject me. The message was as clear as having a conversation with a friend sitting next to me. The message came from a soul I am connected to. That soul wanted to reconnect with me, to feel loved by me again and remind me it loved me too. It was so beautiful to feel this answer.

I am not broken, defective, or poison. My body doesn’t crave life so much it devours it. I am instead, a loving soul, and that loss was nothing more than reconnecting to love that was and is. And in that message of love, that soul asked for forgiveness for hurting me, much like I have begged it to forgive me for not being good enough to be it’s mother in this life.

No wonder I wrote a book about how souls connect. No wonder I wrote about longing to reconnect, love and spirituality. No wonder I wrapped Life-Like in a mask of snarky humor and limbo in the hopes to unconsciously connect the dots for others.

In the past weeks since sending my query out for Life-Like, I have been searching for a way to help children. My husband and I donated to One Simple Wish, we are sponsoring an orphan in Haiti through H.E.R.O Housing Education & rehabilitation of Orphans, I began mentoring a student, and I joined, donated to, and reached out to a specific girl at Good Friends. I needed to give back.

These donations were the gifts I could give. These were the ways I could pay it forward. And you know what. I can’t pay it forward enough. I’ve learned the smallest message to the right person at the right time is life altering. I woke up today without a pain that has lived inside me for three-and-a-half years.

I could have never planned my life’s path. The challenges I’ve overcome. The losses. The triumphs. The physical places I’ve lived that led to connections that benefit me. But I am truly blessed to follow the path I would never have planned.

Happy Hanukkah! Merry Christmas!

bad dreams and querying

My young adult novel, Life-Like has a life of its own in the world now. It sits patiently waiting in query mailboxes across the country and across the pond. All my years of writing, all my dreams, are in the hands of strangers waiting to be judged. I wrote the best book I could. Some agents will pass, okay, most may, but I am in search of my agent. The one who gets and loves the story. In the meantime, the next story I want to write is growing in my mind, which is a good thing. But I’m having terrible nightmares too.

As some of my followers know I suffer from secondary infertility. We struggled for three years to have a second child. We stopped trying a little over one year ago. Some days I’m better about that loss than others. But what I’m not okay with is having baby dreams. I used to dream about the same baby all the time. In most of the dreams, he is a toe headed little boy, that runs around, playing with the three of us completing our family.

Another vivid dream I had,  was me sitting in my bed, cradling a newborn, feeding him a bottle when my mom walks in and smiles. I turn to her and say, “And I was worried.” As if all the years of stress over having a second child were ridiculous. In that dream, I believe my failure to keep a pregnancy should never have haunted me, made me feel less than, broken, hollow, or defeated. Of course I had my son. It was always meant to be.

I can tell you dreams like that crush me. And it’s been a long while since that little boy has appeared to me. But he’s back. If I had any ability to sketch, I’d show you his cherub face and full pouty baby lips.  And if I could share how sweet he is, how loving his soul feels I would do that too. In the past two weeks I’ve dreamed about babies at least three times. Twice I saw that little boy. It was a bittersweet reunion.

The third dream was more like a nightmare. I was in labor (‘nough said) and I gave birth to a healthy baby – and then more labor came and I gave birth to a second baby. The second was much bigger than the first, and more robust. I held both and marveled at the differences. Then my mom came in and looked at me and the babies and told me I had to give one up. I was devastated.

Next thing I knew, my 4-year-old little girl was tapping my shoulder and woke me up. It was a shocking transition from dream world to reality and the horror of the choice I had to make clung to me all day. clearly it still affects me.  Now I hate it when people tell me my book is my baby. The only thing my infertility and writing have in common is the anxiety they both can cause.

So, what’s a girl to do? I have no idea. I do know I’ll keep writing and I will most likely keep dreaming of babies. But I think I’ll go to bed and pray for sweet dreams and good news. Fingers crossed for both.

Husband’s Feedback

My husband liked my book. I’ll paraphrase his kind words.

“You managed to accomplish what 95% of people who start a book don’t. You finished it. And of the five percent who finish only three percent write a good book. This is a good book.” He hugged me too. That was a wonderful. And there was no way that was all he had to say.

The week before I gave my book to him, I sent a copy to Kimberley Griffiths Little. She sent me positive feedback the same day my husband finished reading my book. Her feedback began:

I’ve finished reading and enjoyed it very much. You have a unique premise and twists and turns that are great. Your descriptions are really good, very beautiful in places. I also got a good sense of Ventura Beach and the setting, especially when they’re in the car with Mary and she’s drinking, etc. The kissing scenes with Billy are really, really good, too! Very sexy.

She treated me like a professional and gave me a critique on how to improve my book. I immediately wrote her back and thanked her for her insights and got to work brainstorming so I could meet her challenge and raise the bar on my work, bringing it to the next level. Kimberley believes if I do it successfully I will have more interest in LIFE-LIKE. How could I refuse? No, not me, not this girl! Why would I let two years of work go to waste because my ego got a bit scuffed? It doesn’t matter that I thought I was done revising it until my dream agent took me as a client and gave me a few notes. The gauntlet was set, and I was going to work my way through it.

After my husband gave me his feedback I told him what she said. He agreed. Her note made sense to him. It made sense to me too, but there was a teeny bit of disbelief in me. You see, they reminded me I don’t always put what’s in my mind on the page. It’s a VERY ANNOYING habit. I don’t recommend it if you’re a writer.

I needed to deepen the back story and interpersonal relationships between my main characters. The only way I could invision doing that was to add drama. So I thought of a scenario that makes the mother a little less likable, eek, but gave a greater motivation for the chain reaction that follows. It took me all day Thursday, to write five pages. I had to believe in the changes, see them, feel them, and write them. That meant making a few big edits.

I loved the opening page of my book. But it’s changing with this revision. I never imagined this fight I created. If it’s making me this uncomfortable does that mean it’s good? Were my characters too likable? (Insert heavy sigh.) The ripple throughout the book is going to flex my mental and imaginative muscles. I feel my darlings lining up against the firing wall. It feels like bits and pieces of me are being killed too.

And I can’t talk about my anxiety with my husband, he doesn’t want to listen to me as I pace around the house flinging my hands in the air working out the details. He sees the work I do but doesn’t always understand it.

Since I have to vent my anxiety,  you’re getting a full dose. I don’t want to send out a sub-par book. I want it to be better than anyone expects. Sometimes the best creativity is twisted out of us by outside forces. And I am thankful that the forces behind me have my best interest at heart. I just hope I can deliver and survive the change in my characters.

 

Revisions, rewriting and doubting my own work

I’ve hit that point in the process of writing my first YA book where I’ve fallen out of love. Like any long term relationships it has ups and downs. This is normal. I checked in with Samantha Dunn to make sure. I didn’t trust myself. I would have asked Kimberely Griffiths Little to hold my hand through my neurotic moment, but she is very busy with her own revisions to her books that I didn’t want to bog her down with my shit.

I’ve had a disappointing week. I didn’t win the Pen Parentis Fellowship. I haven’t heard back from two different magazines about essays I submitted, I sent a short story out to Cricket and I check my mailbox every day for my SASE, and I ventured into WriteOncon and my stuff didn’t get the attention of any ninja agents, or much feedback in general and my ego is screaming HEY YOU! PAY ATTENTION TO ME! WHY AREN’T YOU NOTICING ME? PLEASE LOVE ME, I NEED YOU TO FALL IN LOVE WITH LIFE-LIKE!

Instead of accolades I’ve had to deal with the reality that writing is brutally hard often isolating work. This stack of paper represents the last four months of work. The pile depicts two binders containing drafts of LIFE-LIKE.As you can see, it’s four inches thick. And that doesn’t include all the paper I’ve recycled. At first this amount of writing felt like an accomplishment, however after putting my manuscript down for two weeks and letting an editor correct my grammatical errors I picked it up and read it through, as a book on the printed page, and the feelings of achievement were replaced with doubts. I looked at all those pages and the years of work they represent and thought, this stinks.

All I saw was a flaw. I always felt a lull in the writing at a certain point, I felt myself run out of steam, and as a reader with fresh eyes the lull screams at me, “Hey Holly, this sentence isn’t as good as the rest. It has to be. Get back to it.” Or in the ever brilliant words of Tod Goldberg, “This part of your story doesn’t suck. You must write it all on that level.” (he said that to me way back when in 2004 when I was working on a short story) I think it’s good that I can recognize weakness in my work but now I had to figure out how to make it better.

I paced, watched sad movies, then I watched action movies, did errands and even folded the laundry but nothing came to me. I read and reread the offending chapters. And I pinpointed where the changes would have to come in the book. I understood I must up the ante, increase tension and drama and that is difficult to write. I do know enough about my process to accept that I layer one thing(character development, plot, setting) in at a time per draft. I was happy to see the changes I made previously are consistent throughout the book. But they are too consistent. Who wants to read that?

My self-pity and the realization of how much work I have to do led me to self loathing.

And then I figured out one idea that can be turned into a scene that will change everything. Now I have to write it. And I have to write at least three to five chapters that carry that momentum forward before the emotional end. And I’m begging my imagination and my guides and God to help me do it now. I want all the ideas to flood in and I want my fingers to have difficulty keeping up with the story, but that isn’t happening.

That’s when doubt came along and sat next to my computer screen and stared at me. See him? He’s a crabby little bugger. Doubt is trying to convince me I can’t do it. I can’t fix the story or sell it. I think I’m going to have to show that crafty bugger he’s wrong. I’ve got to go. LIFE-LIKE is calling to me. We have unfinished business.

Revised Synopsis

I posted a synopsis a few days ago…and I posted that same one to WriteOnCon, but in true artistic neurotic form, I got help and now have a better one.  Do you agree?

Synopsis LIFE-LIKE

by Holly Raychelle Hughes

Liv is dead.  She just doesn’t know it.  And she will have to relive the eighteenth of December again and again to figure it out.

When Liv’s mom shows up at home with a gaping hole in her head, it doesn’t take much convincing for Liv to realize her mother isdead.  But, even as Liv embarks on a mission to save her mom from deteriorating into a maternal apparition that will haunt her forever, what she doesn’t know is that Mom has come back to save her.

As Liv seeks a solution to her outrageous dilemma, she encounters a dead girl with a distinct drinking problem, a Goth tarot reader who reads Liv’s future with uncanny accuracy, a stalker who turns out to be the instrument of Liv’s death, a conspiracy of ravens who are actually angels, and a dead man who has come for her mother.

And even after Liv realizes her own death, she is still trapped in limbo, fighting the ravens and turning away from her own salvation.  She relives her death, attempting to save her mother and herself, and, in the process, falls in love with her best friend.

But changing events doesn’t save anyone, and Liv must move on or risk suffering a horrible eternal afterlife.  But how can she?  She’s just on the cusp of life with a budding love and high school midterms.  She’s not ready to die!

Liv’s journey takes the reader on an emotional and adventurous ride as she discovers love, experiences regret and guilt, and, ultimately, seeks forgiveness and understanding.  In the end, she finds not only her Heaven but also her long-lost father—and her true meaning for being.

WriteOnCon

WriteOnCon, a free writers on-line conference, is about to begin.What are you waiting for? Sign up, I said it’s FREE!!! It is being held next week, August 14-16. Got to: www.writeoncon.com and see the list of amazing writers, agents, editors that are interested in helping all aspiring writers. I’d post the widget, but can’t seem to get it to work…

And here is my two cents for what it’s worth. I think the most important thing is the writing, your writing, my writing and having the best darn thing you can imagine and then some to show. I’ve worked on my manuscript LIFE-LIKE for years. My goal is to find an agent and get my story on every bookshelf possible. But publishing is not the end goal of every person.

People love writing and write for themselves and the joy and pain it brings to them. It is a way to express oneself and it so satisfying to fill a blank page with thoughts, words and emotion. Conferences can help answer questions on style, technique, voice, critique partners, pitching, recommending books to read, social media, and craft. If you are searching for assistance with any of this come look at WriteOnCon. Keep in mind too, that many universities near and around you offer writing classes. If you can’t make a face to face class, see if they offer on-line classes, many do and you should also look into Media Bistro.

I stayed away from conferences until I had something that I am proud of and am ready to take the rejection and support a conference can offer. By restricting myself from getting lost in the business of writing I gave myself a great deal of time to focus on my story.

I wish all the other writers out there good luck with their stories and process. See you on-line at WriteOnCon 2012 all this week.

Where is the fairness?

 

With so much tragedy going on in Aurora, Colorado and the NCAA ruling on Penn State I haven’t known what to talk about. My emotions are being pulled this way and that. My heart breaks for those trapped, injured and murdered in a movie theater. My heart breaks again for the victims of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of those in charge at Penn State. I keep wondering where to sense of fairness that is inherent in my biology exists in the rest of the world.

No one said life would be fair, right? But come on.

I have this thing I do whenever a murderer’s photo is shown on television. I don’t look. I hold my hand up to obstruct the image. I don’t contribute to their notoriety. I give them none of my energy because to do so feels wrong. I won’t give in to their narcissism. I won’t remember their names, but rather try to remember those they hurt and pray for the families left behind to cope and struggle with the why?

When I was younger I used to ask, “Why me?” so often that my mother bought me a Garfield poster that said the same thing and I hung it on my ceiling. Every so often I still feel that question creep up. I’ve been through enough that it does seem reasonable that it does. (survived a house fire, survived the 1994 Northridge earthquake- lost my home to both experiences. I was raped at 15, had two miscarriages and now suffer with secondary infertility. Listing not to depress you but give you a scope)

Non of those experiences touches the grief rocking those families in Colorado now. I have no idea how you get over something like that. I hope you all find the support you need. Don’t be afraid to reach out and cry on a shoulder or seek professional help. I pray that the victims that are still in the hospital recover both physically and emotionally. I hope you all get past it because life is less lived when consumed with pain.

xox Holly

 

Can I read it?

I’ve spent the last two weeks working on my short story FINGER PAINT. It is my submission for the Pen Parentis New Parent 2012 Fellowship . I haven’t entered many contests because, well I hate to fail and the odds of willing are always minute, but this one struck me. So I decided to go for it. The fellowship guidelines are that an entrant must be a parent to a child ten years or younger, check, and the short story may be of any genre but must be no longer than 1250 words. I had no idea 5 pages could work my brain the way these did. I must have printed out at least 100 pages while editing and working on rewrites. Then when I thought I liked it I realized I edited my voice out, so I went back to my original draft and reworked that. I am happy to say FINGER PAINT went in the mail today, two-days prior to the post marked deadline.

My friend and neighbor helped with my submission. I rummaged through my house for hours looking for staples to bind the pages of my story together. No way I was going to risk any pages falling out-of-order, or on the floor, only to be lost in a sea of other submissions and eventually trashed, after all my hard work. But I couldn’t find any. Not even in the back of my junk drawer! Not to worry, I have great neighbors and M came to my rescue.

Being the wonderful woman that she is, M wished me luck and then asked when she could read it. I felt myself momentarily freeze. Read it? I am always surprised and thrilled when anyone reads something I’ve written. But this story is for a fellowship. Isn’t it right to let them read it first? What if my story freaks her out? I don’t want to lose a friend over my vivid and unique imagination.

Wouldn’t you be worried about a new friend reading a story about an amputated finger kept in a pickle jar in the refrigerator next to the mustard? Come on now, who thinks of things like that? Me! I want her to read it, but what if she doesn’t like it? I’ll see the disappointment on her face. Her head will lean ever so slightly to the left and her eyes will glaze over and she’ll say,  ”Oh, that was good.” But her voice will squeak and what she’ll really be thinking is you worked hard on that POS story? You think that’s good enough to win a FELLOWSHIP for goodness sake! Bless your heart, I think it’s time you stopped working on that book and focused on being a good wife and mother. Okay, she wouldn’t think that, right M?

I think this is every artists dilemma. I want you to like my work, really I do, but I am so afraid you’ll think I suck that I prefer sharing my work when some other stranger I addressed an envelope to but will never meet face to face says, “Yes! We’ll publish that!” before I let you read it. So M. I’ll find out in August if I won or lost the Fellowship. But at least I entered the race. Keep your fingers crossed for me. And I promise to let you read it soon. Just as soon as you’ve had a glass or two of wine ;P

Do What I Say

I’m a do what I say kind of girl.  It’s inherent in who I am. I like the tenacity it means I have. But it also can lead to frustration when the time between what I say and when the “it” is done is longer than I’d like…which is practically always.

People who know me expect the do what I say trait from me. Yet, I still catch them off guard when I follow through.  Two years ago we decided to leave LA. We’d done it before. I’m sure people took bets on the fact that we’d return. But it was out time to go. We left within six moths and built a new life in the South.

I set out to write a book. I have. I am now rewriting and revising it so it’s the best book I can possibly write. The frustrating part is my process is slow. I read that Stephanie Meyer wrote TWILIGHT over one summer. That is dam impressive! It took me eight months to complete my first draft. And it took me eight months previous to figure out what my story was really about. I flailed around with characters and plot. It’s embarrassing to admit.

I so wanted to finish my revisions by February. My new goal is to have it complete and out in the world to agents by the end of August. I not only have to rework some things, I have to write a synopsis and an ass kicking query.  Neither is an easy task. Especially for me who becomes rediculously tongue-tied when talking about my book, LIFE-LIKE. Why is that I can be susinct when talking about my writing process but not about the story itself?

I’m too close to the situation. I judge every word coming form my mouth and I cringe when I hear myself stumble over plot when it is so clear in my mind. Is that how other peole get when they say something and mean to do it?

Do they stumble with the how? Do they stumble over the details, the work, and the journey of accomplishment? The old cliche that life is about the journey…is so annoying to me. I like to start and enjoy being finished.  The middle part is full of sweat and insecurity. That journey can be frustrating. What in the world is holding you back? And what do you have to lose by trying?

I tell my little girl all the time, “Sometime you have to try and try and try. You can’t always do something the first time your try it. It can be frustrating. But practice and trying is the only way to learn.”

I hope you get all the practice and time to try again and again too.

going for it

Amazon.com is sponsoring the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. 5,000 entrants will battle it out for the YA title. I have until February 5th, 2012 to submit Life-like. I am about half way through rewrites on my current draft and have decided to go for it. I’m going to try to blog and work on my novel at the same time. Wish me luck.