Archive for the ‘Publishing’ Category
What to do when a Publishing Relationship Ends
Why is it that most writers plan for the beginning of a publishing relationship, but never plan for the end?
I know, I know. The end of any relationship, in or out of publishing, is not what most people prefer to dwell upon because it’s depressing. The end of any relationship means the end of any current possibilities, and that’s sad and extremely difficult for most human beings to contemplate.
That being said, in the current world we live in, we need to plan how to deal with failure graciously. (Not that every end to every publishing relationship means you’ve failed, mind you; just that it’s going to feel like failure, especially when you know you’ve tried everything in your power to make a publishing enterprise work.) We need to learn how to come to terms with setbacks, be they minor or major, and learn to deal with them as graciously as possible.
See, I look at the publishing business as a long-term thing that, in its own way, is a microcosm of life. We’re going to have good days and bad. The good days are usually easy to handle; it’s the tough ones we must learn from as best we can.
What I do when a publishing relationship has ended is to acknowledge it, make some sort of announcement to those who need to know about it, and am otherwise as polite as humanly possible. My thoughts, which are greatly influenced by those of my late husband Michael in this regard, are these: who knows if I’ll be working with this person/these people in the future? So why be obnoxious now when there’s really no need for it?
Yes, we need to acknowledge when we’re upset or frustrated. I’ve never advocated “sitting on” any emotion, as in my experience that tends to fester and make things worse later on. But we don’t need to go out of our way burning bridges this way and that, either . . . in fact, if we can avoid burning bridges, that’s probably the best way to handle things.
All that being said, it’s sad when anything you’ve spent a great deal of time and effort on goes for naught; I’ve had this happen a few times this past year, and the only thing that can be done is this: chalk it up to experience, be as polite as possible, and move on.
This is very hard to do, granted. But if you can do it, others will notice and appreciate the professionalism of your attitude, which may lead you to further and better work in the future.
So, to sum up, here’s the three things you need to do when a publishing relationship of any sort ends:
1) Come to terms with it and write a brief, polite, professional note saying you’re sorry things have come to this pass (whatever it is), and that you’ve appreciated working with whomever. Also, if you can bring yourself to it, wish the person (or people) well in the future as this costs you nothing.
2) Acknowledge it to those who need to know in a brief, polite and professional note. (Keep your feelings about it, as much as possible, to yourself.)
3) Allow yourself to grieve the loss, because it is a loss — give yourself an hour, or even half a day if you must, to be upset over it. Then, do your best to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on.
Most importantly, do your best not to bear a grudge. Remember that we’re all human, we’re all fallible, and there’s no need to spread nastiness. You don’t need to put up with bad treatment, mind you; far from it. Just try to rise above it if you can while knowing that it’s possible that someday you might work with this person (or these people) again. And if that opportunity arises, you want to be able to work with whomever without undue rancor if at all possible.
You need to think long-term at a time when your inner self is screaming, “No!” at the top of its lungs. This isn’t easy, but if you can do it, it’ll help you in the long run.**
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** Michael’s name for this was the “better in sorrow than in anger” method. Try it. It works.
Quick Note about Naked Reader
Folks, I’ve been remiss about discussing the Naked Reader, which is at nakedreader.com — they’re a new e-book place and so far, they’ve accepted extremely high-quality manuscripts from Sarah A. Hoyt (writing as both herself, and as Sarah d’Almeida), Amanda S. Green, Kate Paulk, and Dave Freer . . . and I’m fortunate enough to get to review them all for Shiny Book Review.
Note that I’ve already reviewed DEATH OF A MUSKETEER, and will shortly be reviewing Green’s NOCTURNAL ORIGINS, Freer’s WITHOUT A TRACE and Paulk’s IMPALER, and I can tell you from what I’ve skimmed that all four of these books are very, very good. Better than that, they’re all in different genres — the first is a “Three Musketeers” pastiche that adds in stronger roles for the women in the Musketeers’ lives, the second is urban fantasy/suspense novel set in the present-day, the third is an alternate history located in South Africa (with suspense) and technically would probably be classified as a young adult/YA novel, and the fourth is a historical fantasy about everyone’s favorite vampire, Vlad the Impaler, who lived in the 1400s.
But best of all? This is a new e-book publisher that seems to really be going places: they know what they’re doing, they’ve accepted very high quality stuff, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about them so far.
Plus, they want people to review their stuff, which is always an excellent sign.
So please, if you want to read good e-books, go to nakedreader.com and buy some — Heck, buy several. And if you’re looking for a good place to send your work, try them out as well, but keep an eye out as to when they’re open for submissions next and remember, always be professional.
Book Reviews: Taking a Second Look
Sometimes it warrants taking a second look at a book; here’s a few books I’ve looked at in the past few years more than once after a review, and why.
First, the only book review I’ve ever had with more than one negative comment at Shiny Book Review was David Drake’s WHAT DISTANT DEEPS (which you can easily find here: http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/what-distant-deeps-an-appealing-departure/) I’d said that I didn’t understand why the hero, Captain Daniel Leary, didn’t seem to understand that his best friend and confidante, Adele Mundy, wanted more from him than that and I somewhat took the easy way out in refusing to define what I was talking about. This called many people to tell me, publicly or privately, that I didn’t know what the (bleep) I was talking about . . . anyway, that review requires more explication, which I’m now going to provide.
Adele Mundy is a very complex woman, and I think David Drake has done a great job in adding to her character through eight RCN (Royal Cinnabar Navy) books thus far. But she has a lot of built-in tension, and all of the references back to her family (which were murdered, horribly, by political enemies) make it clear she wants more from Daniel Leary than he’s capable of providing.
My problem was that I’d clearly said at first this was a romantic thing that she wanted. This really wasn’t it, so I went back and softened this slightly — now in the review I say that “Mundy . . . cannot make Move One” due to her own background — but that, too, wasn’t enough.
Several folks who wrote to me pointed to things author Drake pointed out in his personal blog or at the Baen’s Bar Web site (go to www.baen.com and you can find the links from there), but I believe you find what meaning is there from the text alone. And that meaning in this case shows tension for Adele Mundy every time she thinks about Daniel Leary . . . yet the fact is Adele really doesn’t seem interested in romance with Leary or anyone. So then the problem becomes, rather than romantic love, what, truly, is it that Adele wants from Daniel Leary?
The Greeks had three different words for what we’d all lump in as one word — “love.” The closest to what Adele seems to want from Leary is philios, the love of a friend or brother, yet this might not be the true and complete reading (the only thing I am sure of is that Adele does not want eros, or physical love, from Daniel Leary). Philios is a type of intellectual love where a very smart person can appreciate someone else for his intellect or learning or perhaps even for his high compassion for others, but only on the intellectual or friendship planes.
Then there’s agape, which is a deeper love of friendship than philios, though it can have elements of philios in it (and sometimes even eros as well). Agape is more of a spiritual love than philios; it also can be thought of as the love of God or Deity, though to my mind that’s not really what the Greeks were about. (My hunch is that the Greeks didn’t really have a great word for the love of the Deity, so they threw it in with the love one person had for another person that was unconditional — because agape is definitely considered an unconditional love, and aren’t we supposed to love the Deity unconditionally?)
At any rate, Adele clearly wants philios, and probably agape too, from Daniel Mundy. He’s more than a brother, more than a friend, but can never be a lover due to her own background. I did not explain this well in my review and I’m sorry.
The next book that I looked at again, this time at the request of the author in question (Troy CLE), was OLIVION’S FAVORITES (available at Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Olivions-Favorites-Marvelous-World-Troy/dp/1416942165/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300240110&sr=8-1 ). This was a book that I’d received through the Amazon Vine program and, quite frankly, did not understand at all the first time I read it. Troy CLE’s universe started with THE MARVELOUS EFFECT (available from Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Marvelous-Effect-World/dp/1416942157/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1 ), a really fun book about a good African-American kid, Louis Proof, but I hadn’t read that book and had no idea that book even existed when I read OLIVION’S FAVORITES.
Now, here was the deal with OLIVION’S FAVORITES. CLE’s strategy was to write this book — which actually is “part 1 1/2” of the MARVELOUS WORLD series (being the book that in sequence overlapped somewhat with the first book of the series, THE MARVELOUS EFFECT) — because so very much happened to Louis (and his friends Cyndi and Devon) that he couldn’t depict in THE MARVELOUS EFFECT that he really felt it needed to be told as a story by itself. Making things a little more difficult, in the ARC version I got, there was absolutely nothing depicting anything that had happened in THE MARVELOUS EFFECT (nothing before this one section, which CLE had to take out of the previous book, at any rate), so I had to view OLIVION’S FAVORITES only on its own merits. But I still didn’t get it and said so, giving it initially only two stars (though three for kids).
At this point, author CLE asked me to please read THE MARVELOUS EFFECT, because he thought I’d enjoy it and he also thought it would help me understand what was going on with OLIVION’S FAVORITES. Since he asked nicely — and since I really, really don’t like dinging authors for things that they can’t help anyway (it wasn’t his fault there weren’t any explanatory notes in the ARC) — I went to read THE MARVELOUS EFFECT as I felt I could at least do that much.
I was floored.
THE MARVELOUS EFFECT, in short, was a whole lot of fun. I enjoyed it very much, giving it four stars and a strong recommendation at Amazon for both kids and adults.
So at this point, I decided it wouldn’t hurt anything to re-read OLIVION’S FAVORITES and understood it far, far better; I still didn’t like it to the level of THE MARVELOUS EFFECT, but at least it was comprehensible and had some funny moments — I actually revised my review, said why I was revising it, and gave it three stars (and 3.5 for kids) and a qualified recommendation (my qualifier was this: please read the first book before this one or you’ll be like me the first time around — hopelessly lost).
There’s only been two other books I have re-reviewed like this (rather than writing two reviews at different places at the same time, these are reviews written on different days with more depth the second time around), the first being THE CRUCIBLE OF EMPIRE by Eric Flint and K.D. Wentworth (reviewed at SBR, with that review here: http://shinybookreview.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/the-crucible-of-empire-passes-rigid-test-another-outstanding-novel-from-flint-and-wentworth/ ), but the reason for that review was much different. There, I was unhappy with my first review at Amazon.com because I felt I hadn’t sufficient length to discuss the book, nor why I enjoyed it so very much; with Shiny Book Review in existence by then, I was able to take my further insights to SBR and review THE CRUCIBLE OF EMPIRE to my heart’s content.
I also did this with David P. Clark’s GERMS, GENES AND CIVILIZATION, mostly because my first review at Amazon.com was a blurb and I felt I could do far, far better. Clark’s book required more of me than most books (even those on the economy and politics such as the recently-reviewed THE PREDATOR STATE which can be difficult to understand through the first fifteen readings or so), which is why I jumped at the chance to re-review it once I had the chance. Clark’s book is a rarity in that it’s not too technical to understand; the reason I’d wanted to do better is to explain it in a historical context, rather than just blurbing it as I did the first time . . . I was far more pleased with my second effort, which is here at SBR:
So while it doesn’t happen often, sometimes I do indeed have second thoughts about a book I’ve reviewed, and in general I will try to do something about it (whether it’s writing a new blog like this, or writing a whole new review if I think that’s warranted, I’ll try to make things right).
Now for the real question — does anyone else ever do this? (Or is it just another of my random quirks?)
Amazon.com has some ‘splainin’ to do.
I wanted to update my publication history in my brief profile at Amazon.com (I have one because I’m an Amazon Vine reviewer), and it wouldn’t let me — it said my update contained “profanity.”
Well, here’s what I was trying to do — you tell me if there’s any hidden profanity here, OK?
Current publication history:
November 2010 — “No Rest” (poem), to Midwest Literary Magazine. Also forthcoming in the DUE NORTH anthology.
October 2010 — “The Fair at South Farallon” to e-Quill Publishing, a small yet reputable publishing house in Australia.
September 2010 — “Trouble with Elfs: A Story from the Elfyverse,” with Michael B. Caffrey, to e-Quill Publishing (reprint sale — originally published at the Written Word online magazine in February 2007).
“A Dark and Stormy Night: A Joey Maverick Adventure,” Michael B. Caffrey with Barb Caffrey, to e-Quill Publishing (reprint; originally appeared in the Written Word online magazine in May 2005).
Editor for “Columba and the Cat,” “Columba and the Committee” and “Columba and the Crossing”, three of my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s original stories, to e-Quill Publishing, September 2010.
December 2009 — “Break the Dark Lens” (poem), to Joyful! Online magazine.
“Trouble with Elfs,” to the Written Word online magazine, February 2007.
“A Love Eternal” (poem), September 2006, to the Written Word online magazine.
“A Dark and Stormy Night,” to the Written Word online magazine, May 2005.
The BEDLAM’S EDGE anthology (Baen, 2005), “Bright as Diamonds,” with Michael B. Caffrey.
“On Collaboration” (nonfiction), to Vision Online magazine, July 2004.
Editor, ComicsBulletin.com (an occasional, yet real, gig), mid-2010 to the present.
Editor, Masterpiece Comics, 2005-2008.
Editor, the Written Word online magazine, November 2007 to January 2009 (when the WW went on hiatus).
******
It was at this point I also tried to add that I am reviewing books for ShinyBookReview here at WordPress, and it kicked out. (I know Amazon.com also is holding my review for Connie Willis’s book ALL CLEAR because I’d said my Amazon.com review was a shortened version of the same review I’d done for SBR.)
I would really like to know what, if anything, was profane in my update, because I would like to know why Amazon.com refused to update my profile, or at least have some justification for why they were so very stupid this evening.
WinningWriters.com Mentions My Blog in their end-of-the-year Newsletter
Folks, I was very pleased to see that WinningWriters.com had mentioned my blog in their recent end-of-the-year newsletter — though I knew in advance that they were at least thinking about it as I’d heard from WinningWriters.com editor Jendi Reiter (herself an excellent poet) that they appreciated what I’d written in my second blog about their War Poetry Contest.
I once again do not know how to properly give links to WinningWriters.com as this isn’t a page I found a way to see without actually logging in, but I can cut and paste what they said, first about my blog:
*******
BARB CAFFREY’S BLOG: “More on the War Poetry Contest at WinningWriters.com”
We appreciate Barb Caffrey’s recent comments about our War Poetry Contest on her blog. Here is an excerpt:“Those fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq deserve our support, and our understanding. And the first part of giving our support and our understanding is to listen, to read, and to understand—not to shut out the soldiers who’ve given everything of themselves in order to derail the al-Qaedas and Talibans of this world so perhaps fewer innocents will die than would’ve died had our soldiers not given everything they have in the attempt.
“The War Poetry contest is a good way to keep the conversation going, and to understand exactly what is going on with our returning soldiers and how hard it is to deal with what most of us see as ‘normality’ after dealing with things that no man, or woman, or child should ever have to see. It also is a way to affirm the sacrifices of our men and women in a positive, life-affirming way.”
****** End cut-and-paste from Newsletter.
The kind folks at WinningWriters.com also listed my publication credits — more of ’em than I’d expected, actually, though I was very pleased with the “shout-out” — in this bit from the newsletter, once again cut and pasted:
Barb Caffrey has placed four short stories with e-Quill Publishing, a new e-book publisher in Australia: her original tale “The Fair at South Farallon”, a science fiction satire about aliens, friendship, and unemployment; “Iron Falls”, a near-future military suspense tale co-authored with Piotr Mierzejewski; and two stories co-authored with her late husband Michael B. Caffrey, “Trouble with Elfs” and “A Dark and Stormy Night: A Joey Maverick Adventure”. Three of Mr. Caffrey’s stories about Princess Columba and her shapeshifting cat/husband have also been released by e-Quill as a special anthology. Her poem “A Love Eternal” will appear in e-Quill’s anthology of poems about mortality. Visit their author pages (at e-Quill Publishing — www.equillpublishing.com). Ms. Caffrey blogs at https://elfyverse.wordpress.com. In other news, her poem “No Rest” was accepted by Midwest Literary Magazine for inclusion in their November issue and their anthology Bearing North.
********* end cut-and-paste.
I really appreciate them mentioning Michael’s work — his “Columba” stories — and that they mentioned my blog, not once, but twice.
I’ve known about this for a few days, but wanted to wait to post until Sunday — as Sunday is, for many, a day of private reflection where we might, occasionally, remember to give thanks for the good things which happen to us (along with condemning the bad ones, which tends to go on every single day).
Anyway, I’m very pleased about this; I just wish I knew how to give some decent links. But since I don’t, please go look at WinningWriters.com for yourself and sign up for the basic newsletter as it’s free — and as I’ve said before, I’ve found it very helpful and interesting.
BTW, the links that the kind folks at Winning Writers put in didn’t work when I cut and pasted them into this e-mail — I had to take them out (as they all referred back to WordPress’s “types of blogs” thing, which wasn’t what they should’ve done) — including the link to the War Poetry Contest itself. My apologies in advance for that error . . . I’m not great with links, but this is the first time a simple cut-and-paste did not work.
My poem, “No Rest,” accepted at Midwest Literary Magazine
I found out a few days ago that my poem, “No Rest,” has been accepted at Midwest Literary Magazine and will be in an anthology from them called “Due North” along with their November issue. Here’s their press release, which only gives my name — but does prove my work was accepted so I’m printing it:
http://midwestliterarymagazine.com/2010/11/14/congratulations-november-authors/
I wrote “No Rest” two years ago, kept revising it (I have at least seven different versions, which isn’t uncommon for poets — Dylan Thomas used to work and re-work his poetry constantly, and so did Byron and so did many others like Coleridge and Keats), and finally placed it this year toward the end of 2010. This is my third poetry sale; the first was to the Written Word online magazine in 2006 with my poem “A Love Eternal,” then sold my poem “Break the Dark Lens” to Joyful! Online magazine in December of 2009.
The writing life is fraught with peril, financially, and is extremely difficult to deal with mentally as there’s far more rejections than acceptances involved for any writer — much less someone who’s not well-known like me. But days like this are good ones; I wrote a lot this morning (see my earlier blog of today’s date for details) and placing “No Rest” at the Midwest Literary Magazine helps give me encouragement. I’d badly needed it after having possibly the best story I’d ever collaborated on rejected by the Writers of the Future contest as I’d reported last Friday.
The best thing you can do as a writer is to persist, while the second best thing you can do is to keep your work out there as best you can. I believe submitting stuff is very important, but refusing to give in and continuing to work on your craft however you can is the absolute most important thing when it comes to writing, bar none. So don’t let the rejections stop you, my friends; keep on keepin’ on, as that’s literally the only way to succeed in this business at any level.
Writers of the Future bounces 3rd quarter story.
Folks, some nights are beyond frustrating, and this is one of them.
The story I sent to WotF in the 3rd quarter is a Joey Maverick tale set in my late husband’s universe, with mostly his characters — this is the second tale, and for this one I’d added a great deal of things (more plot layers, a few new characters, deepening of the characters already there, some internal monologue). And were Michael alive, it would’ve been Michael who’d sent this in (providing he wrote all this in, of course), and I’d have been the one checking the MSS — meaning I’d have caught stuff that apparently got by me this time.
All I was told was that my story (based on Michael’s “Maverick” universe) “didn’t go in double-spaced” (I thought it had; I know they want traditional MSS format, which is what I use constantly) and I noticed on the page they sent back (which indeed wasn’t double-spaced, though I haven’t a clue why at this remove) that it had the wrong header — which I know I fixed. I was on my Mom’s computer at that point, not mine (Mom has air conditioning, and I don’t), and I know Mom’s computer can do some odd things to formatting. That’s probably what happened to the headers (I checked, but probably saw what I wanted to see; this is a failing). But as for the double-spacing, I haven’t a clue. Because I do know better.
At any rate, this is probably the best story I have ever sent them, and because of these two things, the story itself wasn’t considered. I don’t blame them for this, because they get so many stories, they’re going to have to kick stuff out however they can — they once bounced “Trouble with Elfs” because they said the “protagonists’ ages (were) too young,” because they were teens, even though I’ve seen stories about teens in the WotF anthology before and probably will again. That one frustrated me even more than this one, because it was perfectly formatted; fortunately, the story eventually sold in 2007. (I sent it to WotF in 2004, long before Michael passed away.)
I sent them something for the September 30th ending quarter, but I have no hopes for that story (which means it’ll probably be the one that finally breaks through, right?) — this was the one I had the hopes for, not that one.
It frustrates me beyond belief to be thought of as someone who didn’t do her homework; I always double-space my manuscripts, from the start, and when I got the print-out off the printer, I looked at it — I’d checked. It printed out double-spaced fine, for me. I still have the copy I printed out, for comparison; it is double-spaced throughout.
Mind, I believe I will place “Joey Maverick: On Westmount Station” quickly, so all is not lost.
But for a writer who’s doing her damndest to be professional in all her dealings, stupid crap like this bugs me. It truly does. And the only good thing stuff like this does is to remind me to check the formatting four or five times in short stories, and perhaps wait on the story a day if I have that time; you can call this a hard-won insight if you’d like, though I’m still mad as Hell at myself for not seeing this when I sent it in.
Realms of Fantasy bought . . . UPDATED
. . . by Damnation Books LLC.
UPDATE: Preditors and Editors does not recommend Damnation Books LLC; please see their Web site for further details:
Preditors and Editors is a highly reputable site that monitors agents, book publishers, and more. If they say this market is not recommended, I’d steer clear unless and until Damnation Books LLC proves they will be much more responsible and reliable than they’ve apparently been in the past.
Jason Cordova, in the comments section, said that he knew Damnation Books LLC wasn’t reliable; perhaps he’d checked Preditors and Editors.
The other things I found out about Damnation Books LLC with a quick search is that they do something rather odd; their e-book prices go up .05 per copy until 119 sales are reached, at which point they stay at $5.95. This is not author-friendly, to put it mildly, and is a very unusual business concept — I don’t see how it’d pay anyone to do it that way. (Please see this thread, here:)
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155548
Worse yet, it appears from this thread that Damnation Books LLC makes their “real” money by the illegal use of what’s called a “kill” fee, where they do something wrong with your manuscript — bad editing, bad cover, bad whatever — then you end up paying them to get out of your contract. This is a horrible business practice, and it is one I cannot support.
Note that it’s not only unethical to do something like this (the whole “kill fee” issue), but it is illegal unless it’s actually in the contract. Even there, it probably won’t hold up in court because it’s not a normal business practice, so if for some reason anyone reading this blog has had bad dealings with Damnation Books LLC, they should go to a lawyer and find out their rights pronto.
The publisher pays the writer. It’s not supposed to be the other way around, and whenever you see writers paying the publisher instead, that is not a good sign.
It’s too soon to know whether they will behave at Realms of Fantasy the way Damnation Books LLC has behaved so far in their two years of professional existence. But since they have a history that’s bad, I’d not submit there until or unless I heard they had profoundly altered their business practices for the better.
Now, back to the link, and the original post. (BC)
******
Here’s the link:
http://www.rofmag.com/2010/11/09/damnation-books-llc-buys-realms-of-fantasy-magazine/
The substance of the press release states that all subscriptions will be honored by the new publisher; there’s a new address to submit stories, and the April 2011 issue will be a dark fantasy issue to commemorate the World Horror Convention. Damnation Books LLC will host a party there, and will have a booth in the press area, according to this press release.
Only time will tell how the new publisher does, much less the type of stories the new publisher buys; as for the editors of Realms of Fantasy, no official word is forthcoming.
New book review — LMB’s “Cryoburn” — plus remembering my husband, Michael
I reviewed Lois McMaster Bujold’s new novel about Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, Cryoburn, at the “sister” site Shiny Book Review this evening. Please go to this link:
All I’ll say here is, Cryoburn is worthy, interesting, and weighty — but not a pleasure-read by any stretch of the imagination. Make sure you are prepared for this, as Cryoburn, simply put, is all about death — and potential revival, for those who elect it — and that is not an easy or lightweight subject to contemplate.
And as for the writing of the review, it was far more difficult than I’d anticipated. I really, really like Lois McMaster Bujold’s writing — I like it a whole lot. But a novel about death, and about the survivors of those who’ve died but may yet be revived — well, it’s not an easy novel to enjoy, let’s put it that way. (At least not for me as a widow.)
******** SPOILER AND REMEMBRANCE ALERT ********
Reading Cryoburn stirred up all sorts of issues I thought I’d dealt with in my grief cycle, because I completely understood why Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan made the choice she did at the very end (in her “drabble,” a short bit of story in 100 words). I would’ve done exactly as Cordelia, and for the same reasons, were our medical technology more advanced at the time of my beloved husband Michael’s passing; if a man has brain damage, and it is extensive — whether it’s from lack of oxygen or whatever else — and medical science cannot bring him back to the level he was before the brain damage, what kind of life would that be?
Fortunately I did not have to make that determination. Michael fought hard for life and I knew he wanted to stay with me. I desperately wanted him to stay with me, too, and prayed hard for that miracle to occur. But it wasn’t to be; his life on this plane of existence ended, but who he was and what he was all about lives on. That’s what Cordelia understood that her grieving son, Miles, did not get — maybe could not get. Simply put: the most important thing about her husband’s life, or mine, is this — he lived it his way.
If you’ve followed my blog to this point, or know anything about me at all, you know full well that I will do whatever I possibly can, ethically and morally, to keep Michael’s writing alive. I will finish it since I must, even though I wish with all my heart and soul and spirit that Michael were still with us in the totality of his intelligence, bright spirit and strong will. I’d rather he were alive to do this, because I loved watching him create, and I loved reading his stories.
Still. I am the only one left who understands what he was getting at, and I can write his style (with great effort, but I can do it). That’s why I will do whatever I can to complete his work, because in that way and only in that way do I feel like I’ve remembered Michael properly, as the man he always was — creative, alert, intelligent, witty, and beloved beyond words.
It’s important to remember a person as he lived, not as he died. That’s why the process of creation is so important to me. It was important to Michael, too, because writing something, creating something, meant we’d done something no one else on the planet was able to do in the same way. Creating is one way of exerting your own sense of individuality, of how you see the world, and it’s the best way to remember a creative person, in my opinion.
At any rate — while life is for the living, it’s also for remembering, positively and with great care, the honored dead. Maybe that’s why it was so hard for me to like Cryoburn, as it hits way too close to home for comfort.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 