I’m posting this today because I had another post scheduled but my guest came up with a BRILLIANT idea that needs more time. So instead, an update on my Simple Project.
Next month is challenge month for my Mommy Writers group. We chose October over November (NaNoWriMo) because as moms, a lot of us just can’t do it. Too many other things going on.
I really, really want to use my challenge months to work on Separate Ways Book 2, which I’m tentatively calling Brother Jochen. I’m not sure it’ll actually be about Jochen, but I do want to get into his story a little bit more.
Back to A Simple Project. The manuscript stands about about 65,000 words. WOW! There are also multiple scenes that I’ve written and just need to plug in and, I think, a potential ending.
I had to set the project aside for a few weeks because I was stuck. I didn’t want to add in my MMC’s POV. It felt too weird. I couldn’t do it.
Now, if you are familiar with my books, you know I have NO TROUBLE writing male POV, I’m fact, I prefer it. This time, however, I was trying to avoid making him a POV character. How could I even pretend to know his thoughts?!
Finally, though, I caved and sunk into his brain. In so doing, I was able to go back and add chapters to the beginning. It is funny because it was a series of scenes I had been imagining for some time, even before I started this book. Naturally, of course, I pictured them under quite different circumstances. Not the least of which, they were set in 1930s-40s Germany, not 2025 USA.
I think Gunter Schrader was my first attempt to work through these things. The silence. The mystery. The natural assumption of a sinister spirit. (If you’ve read Dearest Gunter you know there is foreshadowing about his trajectory in WWII.)
Shameless self-promotion, Take ONE:
Did you catch the bit about Brygida and Gunter in my novella, Schneewittchen? Far from being a focal point of the story, they still make me want to melt into a puddle. Do you think it means that “Dearest Gunter” has finally found true love? Or does Brygida have a long lost love he doesn’t know about?
Many readers are frustrated with books that leave them with cliffhangers, or more questions than answers. If that’s you, have no fear: both my novellas somehow relate to the Separate Ways Series, and you can enjoy those while I work on Book 2 of the series proper.
And CUT!
Until October, though, I’m making a first editing pass through A Simple Project. I still don’t know if I’ll ever publish it, but the more I think about it, it probably needs to be published. Things are changing fast. (Even faster since I first drafted this post.)
When you encounter articles in major publications like The Washington Post entitled “Eighty Years after WWII”s End, the Consensus it Forged is Crumbling,” you realize that there are things that need to be said. I know, I know, I harp on it all the time: if we really want “NEVER AGAIN,” we have to consider the whole picture.
Yet that is the very reason I am so hesitant to publish my Simple Project. Though it is indeed simple and sweet, it issues a major challenge to the way we think about the past.
Along with being about large-scale events of the past, it has caused me to dive into my own past. My childhood, and my mom’s experience as a single parent. I feel like I’m vicariously living my mom’s side of the story through my FMC:
When I picture the scenes in Jessy’s home, I picture the little apartment my mom and I shared from roughly 1989 to 1991. I was 9, 10, 11. I feel her struggle to make ends meet, I experience her frustration over never being able to provide everything she wants to for her children, and the exhausting busy-ness that prevents her from spending time with them the way she wants to.
My mom had it a little better. She worked one job and spent the rest of her time at home with me. Jessy has two kids, and works two jobs to make ends meet. We’ll talk about her ex in another post. Also, Jessy’s kids are older: in their teens.
Finally, the book is set in 2025, not 1989.
Still, so many of my subconscious memories have gone into this book, I almost feel it is as much about this as it is about the historical stuff. It has been very good, very therapeutic. It could become a whole series in itself–but as my friends in the Christian Mommy Writers group say, put it in the trunk of ideas (or bag, or whatever mental container you use). I do feel like a very important piece of this story is missing, but it may just not be time for that yet.
Regardless of whether or not I publish this book, I need it. And, there’s a part of me that feels like I’m picking up someone’s torch by writing it. I’ll share about that someday too.
I’m looking forward to hosting Brave Authors Shannon McNear and Rebecca Reed in the near future. Be sure to subscribe to my blog to receive their posts in your inbox later this month!
Aubrey Taylor Books 