Archive for the ‘Remembrance’ Category
Just reviewed “The Dragon Variation” and “Mouse and Dragon” at SBR; Comments.
Folks, here’s the link before I forget:
Now, a few comments from me (otherwise known as the peanut gallery):
These books are excellent. Truly outstanding. Magical, even . . . they get all the emotions right. All the mores right. All the cultural issues right. The language is impressive, the descriptions are just right, and the romances are conflicted, realistic, sometimes amusing and touching, all at once.
I wish I could write this like this pair of authors, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; I truly do.
The end of my review talked about the emotional, powerful impact MOUSE AND DRAGON had on me. MOUSE AND DRAGON is about the too-brief marriage of Aelliana Caylon and Daav yos’Phelium, and is realistic in so many ways about what happens to a widower when his spouse dies that I can’t even tote them up on a toteboard. That Aelliana’s presence sticks around (more or less in ghost form) is not the most amazing part of this achievement; it’s that Sharon Lee and Steve Miller — neither of whom have been widowed as far as I know — got it right that our deceased spouses do live on. In us.
One of the issues I’ve had with widowhood from the beginning is that I didn’t know how to express my feelings over the loss of my husband beyond rage, despair, extreme frustration and loss. It’s really hard to lose a spouse when you’re only thirty-nine years old, and you’ve only had a few, short years together. Blissful years, sure. But still — far too short.
The entire story of Daav’s marriage — how he met Aelliana, in SCOUT’S PROGRESS. How he married her, then lost her, in MOUSE AND DRAGON. How he dealt with her continued presence in FLEDGLING and SALTATION — has now been sketched out. It is a stunning achievement, one that I can’t praise highly enough; it shows two extremely intelligent people who are constrained by circumstances that manage to forge a life together, then manage to keep on loving each other in a meaningful way after one of the pair’s physical death.
Daav’s solution — which I will discuss here, but I warn you it is a spoiler if you haven’t read the end of MOUSE AND DRAGON, or any of FLEDGLING or SALTATION — is to immerse himself in an alternate identity, Jen Sar Kiladi, and thus take a lover. He has a child, Theo Waitley, by his lover, who is a half-sibling of his son Val Con yos’Phelium by his wife, Aelliana Caylon. And Aelliana has stuck around; she still views herself as Daav’s wife, and despite him taking a lover (at her insistence, I might add), nothing has changed for them as far as their feelings go. It’s just that because she no longer has a physical body, she can’t meet all his physical needs.
I’ve been pondering this. I think there’s something here that might help me, psychologically, deal with something I’ve really not wanted to have to think about — possibly being with another man.
You see, Michael was the ultimate in my experience. The best husband (as I had two previous ones, believe you me, I know how good a husband he was). The best, and most supportive person, I have ever had the privilege to know, yet he was not sycophantic and would tell me off if he felt the need (which, fortunately for me, was rarely).
How do you go beyond “the ultimate?” How do you find any meaning with anyone else?
I don’t know, but I’m finally willing to at least consider the possibility that someone extraordinary — someone like Kamele Waitley was for Daav/Jen Sar — might exist out there.
I’d best end this now, or I’ll get maudlin — and trust me, none of us need that.
The Holidays are here: Reflections on Grief.
Grieving people are often wholly misunderstood, even by friends and family members. And when holidays come around, that misunderstanding tends to become magnified tenfold, if not hundred-fold . . . simply put, oft-times the “advice” you get from the well-meaning is not worth the time to listen to it.
A case in point being the saying, “You need to move on” from your grief.
Move on to what, exactly?
I mean, here I am — I loved my husband with all my soul and all my strength, and I still love him to this day. I will always love him, and I don’t see anything wrong with that — the only difference between me and another grieving widow is that it’s been six years and three months (plus a day) since my husband died, and by this time most widows don’t say anything about how much they still miss their husbands. (Widowers, either, about their wives.)
Well, I’m tired of that unwritten rule, and here’s why.
When you love someone, you tell them. Often. You do good things for them. Often. You let others know that you care about your loved ones, as often as you can get away with it, and without pushing your relationship in someone else’s face, you do whatever you can to keep that relationship alive — a living, breathing thing. And everyone understands that, so long as your spouse, or your family member, or your friend, or even your beloved pet, is still alive.
But once that person (or pet) is dead, all bets are off. Suddenly, you’re not supposed to talk about the person any more, because he or she is dead. Even though you love him or her just as much as you did yesterday, and you appreciate his or her presence in your life for as long as he or she was able to stay, you’re now supposed to say nothing because “it’s not done.”
In fact, as a widow or widower, you’re supposed to take your wedding ring off, and prepare to date someone else, or there’s something wrong with you. (Like Hell there is, but that’s another issue entirely.)
So now, you’re not only not supposed to talk about the person you love so much, but you’re also supposed to surrender your most prized possession — your wedding ring — because “it’s not done” to keep wearing it.
I have news for anyone who thinks this way: you are being ridiculous.
I can’t make your decisions for you about how you grieve, nor whether you date again, nor how soon you date again, or anything else, because that’s all up to you. (As it should be.) But I categorically refuse to let anyone make my decisions for me.
My husband Michael was the most important, most valuable person in my entire life. Bar none. I refuse to stop talking about him — about his influence on me as a writer. As a person. As an editor. As anything — because what we had together was priceless. Invaluable. And well worth remembering and honoring.
Holidays are extremely difficult. I miss my husband with every breath I take. And I want him back . . . oh, how I want him back.
But all I can do is continue on. Keep trying. Keep creating. Keep his work alive, along with my own, and of course along with anything we started together.
Holidays, to me at least, are not entirely about spending time with family, though I do a good bit of that. And they aren’t all about gift-giving (financially, that’s out), though I do think a great deal about those less fortunate than me and pray for the best outcomes possible.
No.
Holidays, to me, are about remembrance. Are about love. Are about honor, and shared sacrifice, and about dreams becoming the truth — because, you see, Michael and I made our commitments to each other around this time eight years ago today.
And I would never, ever, wish to “move on” from remembering that.
Elizabeth Edwards dies at 61
Elizabeth Edwards, a Democratic Party activist, a mother, a wife, a brilliant lawyer and much, much more, died today at the age of 61.
I never had a chance to meet Mrs. Edwards, though I read her book, RESILIENCE, and was impressed by it, and I’d heard her cogent political commentary during the 2004 and 2008 elections due to her husband John Edwards having run for the Democratic nomination for President in both election cycles (and having accepted a bid to be John Kerry’s Vice Presidential nominee for the Democratic Party in 2004). Mrs. Edwards was an advocate for health care for all, and for increased cancer screening and testing — this was partly due to the breast cancer which she’d had for years, and which took her life.
What I think with regards to Elizabeth Edwards is this: she was a fighter. She did not quit. She did not give up. And she did her level best to turn lemons, like her cancer diagnosis, or her teenage son Wade’s death in an automobile accident, or her husband John’s flagrant affair with Rielle Hunter during the 2008 Presidential campaign, into lemonade.
In other words, Elizabeth Edwards was the type of person who didn’t let anything throw her, anything shock her, or anything stop her for very long. She was a truly admirable woman, someone with a great strength of character.
She will be missed by many, including me.
My uncle Wayne died today at 74.
With great sadness I pass along this news . . . my uncle Wayne, who was a brilliant man who’d been a husband, a father, a psychologist, a military veteran, and much more, died today at the age of 74.
Two-plus months ago, my uncle went into the hospital for a heart operation. It was thought that if he had the operation, and it was successful, it would buy him a few more years of comfortable living. At the time, my uncle was suffering from congestive heart failure and a number of other ailments, and he wasn’t enjoying being slowed down by illness (as he’d always been active, before), so he felt he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. So he had the operation.
At any rate, he was on the operating table for twelve to fourteen hours, I believe (I may be misremembering), and it took him nearly two weeks to come out of the coma he was in after surviving that operation. I know my aunt was told he might not come out of the coma and if he didn’t, they needed to talk with her about “pulling the plug” — that is, ending his life — but fortunately he did come out of the coma.
When he did, though, he didn’t always know his wife, and he was paralyzed on one side of his body. Physical and occupational therapy was started, which made my uncle very tired — I heard all of this from my Mom, his sister, who heard it directly from my aunt himself — and he had some good days and some bad (the worst being when he was diagnosed with MRSA in his lungs, which caused pneumonia and worse).
They tried a lung procedure a few days ago to see if that would give him some ease of breathing, because he wasn’t able to breathe without the respirator and even with it, his breath came short and fast. (Once again, I was not there — this is all third-hand, but seems accurate. I truly wish I were not among the vast numbers of America’s unemployed or I’d have found a way to take my mother to see her brother, as he lived in another state that was over 600 miles away.) The procedure did not work.
My Mom got the call from my aunt yesterday that the doctors had told my aunt that my uncle Wayne could endure no more, and that his death was imminent. Then we waited, while I did my best not to disrupt my father’s 74th birthday celebration (my parents are long-divorced) because while he knew and liked my uncle, he wouldn’t have appreciated hearing anything bad on his birthday. (Trust me. This was for the best.)
And today, the news came a bit past 12:00 noon that my uncle Wayne had died.
I feel numb, maybe because I was hoping for a miracle. Wayne had rallied at least twice before and I knew he wanted to live, very strongly. But in this case, he just wasn’t able to do any more . . . he had to leave his wife, and his children, and his grandchildren, and his sister (my Mom), and his nieces and nephews, etc., behind.
My uncle was not religious, though he went to the Unitarian Universalist church for the fellowship it offered. He was agnostic, and as such I’d not want to wish him to be in a positive afterlife if that’s truly not what he wanted. (Some people just want to end after this life, and not have an afterlife of any sort, and I believe that my uncle was most likely in this category.) So my usual well-wishes, hollow though they tend to be, are not adequate to this occasion in any case . . . all I can do is wish my aunt well, which I have done, and pray that somehow, some way, all the distress she endured over the past ten-plus weeks will be worth it to her. Somehow.
I am a widow and I would never, ever wish this state on anyone else. It is incredibly difficult to wake up every day, alone, wishing like fire that my beloved husband, Michael, will somehow be beside me, alive again, and that everything I’ve endured is a horrible dream. I’ve even wished, at times, that I were in a coma and that I was dreaming all of this — that he’s alive, somehow and in some way, and that I will rejoin him and everything will be as it was.
But because I do believe in a positive afterlife, I at least have that to hope for, while my aunt, it seems to me, may not be able to hope for that (though I hope in her case that I’ve misread my uncle and that she can — she knows him far, far better than I ever could). And I do wish for that positive afterlife, for more long walks with my husband, for more conversation, for more thoughts on books and baseball and “life, the universe and everything,” what I was blessed to have for the three years I knew Michael and the two years, two months and twenty-eight days we had of marriage on this plane of existence.
Life is short, folks. It truly is. And that’s why I wish those of you who still have your spouses or significant others to enjoy them to the fullest and appreciate them as much as you possibly can even on the bad days. Even though the economy is bad, and you may be suffering financially like never before, try to be grateful for the love you have all around you, and store up those memories.
I’ve found that you can live a long time on them, if need be . . . .
More on the War Poetry Contest at WinningWriters.com
Folks, I wrote to the kind folks at WinningWriters.com and asked for a link that would work so I could talk more about the War Poetry contest than I had, and Adam Cohen wrote back to me this morning with a link that will work:
http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/war/2010/wa10_pastwinners.php
Now, let’s talk about the top three poems since I have a good link to the contest that y’all can use. (By the way, if you are a poet or a writer or want to know more about what is available out there to read and to try for as far as contests go, the WinningWriters.com Web site is an outstanding place to start your research. I’ve been getting their free newsletter for at least a year and a half and I’ve found it very helpful.)
The Grand Prize winner was Gerardo “Tony” Mena with his poem, “So I was a Coffin.” (He won $2000.) He is a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his poem was written for his friend Corporal Kyle Powell.
This poem is searing in its imagery, and goes through a series of steps — we first see a spear, and when that doesn’t work, we see a flag. When that isn’t quite right, we see a bandage — and this is where the poem really starts to hit between the eyes — and when the bandage doesn’t work, then the poem talks about coffins. And about how finally, at long last, he’s a “good coffin,” when he’d been inadequate as a spear, a flag, and a bandage.
This poem stands one step away from heartbreak from the beginning, and its imagery is stark in its simplicity. Knowing it was written for Mr. Mena’s friend just adds another layer to what makes this personally moving, but even had I not known that (had Mr. Mena not said anything about it) I believe this poem would’ve had similar emotional intensity.
The second place winner, Bruce Lack, sent in three poems entitled “FNG,” “Get Some” and “Hadji.” Mr. Lack is a former member of the United States Marine Corps, and it’s obvious he’s used his military service as a springboard for his poetry. All three of these poems are searing, and there’s bad language in two of ’em — understandable bad language, to be sure. (I mention this in case anyone wants to read these with their children; adults, please check these out by yourselves just in case.) He won $1200 for his poems, but as with Mr. Mena, it appears far more important to Mr. Lack that his poetry be read and understood than that it earned money. (I’m sure neither of them are adverse to the money; it’s just that these poems do need to be read and understood by as many as possible.)
Specifically, “FNG” is about a soldier’s duty and how you’re supposed to keep yourself “shipshape and Bristol fashion” at all times. (That’s not how Mr. Lack puts it, mind you.) “Get Some” is all about a soldier who saw one of his friends die, and how he can’t put that image out of his mind no matter how hard he tries to resume his life. And “Hadji” is about war, and about what he thought he’d see but didn’t — yet what he saw was far more than he could deal with.
All three of these poems work as a set, but they’d work by themselves, too. But as a set, they show that even the most mundane tasks a soldier deals with daily can be difficult to deal with because all of them — all — lead to the soldier’s ultimate duty, that of war and how he (or she) must learn to deal with what they’ve seen and done, not to mention wanted to do.
The third place winner is Anna Scotti, and is the only non-veteran in the top three winners. Her poem is called “This is how I’ll tell it when I tell it to our children,” and it’s about “prettifying” the war so what the soldiers did to the protagonist doesn’t seem as terrifying as it actually was. Ms. Scotti won $600 for this poem, and it is a nice counterpart to the four other poems written by Mr. Lack and Mr. Mena in that it’s quieter, but no less intense. This is the one poem of the five that takes some effort to read, but once you figure out she’s talking around the subject rather than about it, it becomes just as heart-rending as the others.
I believe that this War Poetry contest is extremely important to highlight, which is why I’ve written this second (and far more comprehensive) blog about it. The two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have fallen out of the public consciousness to a degree because for whatever reason the media isn’t covering it as much as it used to — maybe they’re bored with it. Or maybe they just don’t think it’s “sexy” to talk about people dying in a far-away place for an undetermined objective. (Or, rather, an objective that the media would rather not discuss; trying to undermine al-Qaeda or the Taliban is very important, but it’s something that can’t be conveyed in a quick “sound-bite.”)
I’ve known many veterans in my life; my husband Michael was a proud Navy veteran, my father is a proud Navy veteran, my uncles served in the Army and Marines, my cousins have served in the Marines and the Army, and my friends have served in all branches (Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, and Air Force). I believe that serving our country is extremely important — my own health would never allow me to serve (I tried, in my youth) — but we can’t forget what our fine men and women see when they’re dealing with war and death. We can’t “prettify” it — that’s why Anna Scotti’s poem is so moving — or “gussy it up” so it’ll be more acceptable in a conversation. And we certainly cannot ignore it, because that also ignores the huge sacrifices our military men and women have made for us over the years and is damned cruel, besides.
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.
But the War Poetry contest really needs more people to go and read these fine poems (including the honorable mentions and the published finalists — I didn’t see a bad poem in the lot) and reflect upon what our veterans have done for us, as shown by the many veterans (and non-vets) who’ve written outstanding poetry about war for this contest.
So please, go to the WinningWriters.com Web site — go to the link that was provided — and read these poems. Then think about them, and talk about them, and pass them on to your friends and neighbors. Because maybe we can get the conversation going that seems to have been woefully absent in Washington, DC, and in all of our state legislatures besides — and a “maybe” in this case is far better than the “Hell, no!” our servicepeople have been getting to date in their personal re-writing of history in order to make it more palatable to their children, to their spouses, and to their friends.
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.
An Elegy for Pat Strawnsky, 73.
One of my friends, Pat Stransky, passed away recently at the age of 73. I hadn’t seen her in at least two years, but I thought about her often and called upon occasion . . . she, like me, lost her husband in 2004 and we often talked about how much we missed our husbands, along with current events and the oddities of which pop star was doing what to whom. (Pat, like my Grandma, liked to follow the gossip magazines.)
Pat and Roger had two children; one, Mark, is in a group home due to some learning disabilities, while the other is married with children living in another state. I hope the two surviving children will remember the love Pat had for them, and all the good times they must have shared as a family.
Pat loved animals. She had a very large dog — I can’t recall her dog’s name right now, but though it weighed well over 100 pounds it was a sweet and gentle animal, devoted to Pat’s well-being. Pat’s dog died a year or so ago, which saddened me when I heard about it.
Pat was 73, which is a good age for a woman with chronic health issues, emphysema, and all the other things Pat faced in retirement as a woman alone after her husband died. But it saddened me greatly to hear of her passing for two reasons — one, she spent her last days in a nursing home (a very nice one, but she’d never wanted to go there — we’d talked about it often), and two, she was a very kind and gracious lady, and the world needs far more of those than it has.
I cannot say “rest in peace” because I find that common phrase to be an abomination — but I can say that I hope Pat has found Roger in the afterlife, and that they’ve been reunited with all their loved ones on the other side, including their pets.
My life was richer for knowing you, Pat. I’ll miss you.
Open Season on the Widow(er): More about Debbie Macomber’s “Hannah’s List”
Before I start into today’s blog, I want to first point you to the book review I just did at Shiny Book Review:
I had a hard time containing my rage and frustration after reading Hannah’s List. There are so very many things wrong with this book — and all of them start with the premise: why would a man who’s grieving get a letter from his dead wife (written as she lay dying) asking him to remarry forthwith because he should have children — as if children are owed to him in her view — and then give a list of three disparate women who, in Hannah’s view, would make her husband Michael an excellent second wife?
Most if not all of you know I am a widow, and thus, Michael the doctor’s plight is not unknown to me. Anniversaries are hard — the first one in particular, but they never get any easier, and grief has its own cycle — one that doesn’t obey any time clocks — that the widow or widower must endure.
Doctor Michael Everett, the hero of Hannah’s List, has been grieving for one year — apparently author Macomber thought this was just much too long for a vibrant man in his late-thirties — and we’re supposed to believe that Hannah, his wife, is a selfless, caring, giving saint for finding three women she thinks will appeal to her husband to succeed her after her death.
Excuse me, but when did this woman die and become God(dess)? I mean, isn’t it up to Michael — the widower — to decide when or even if to date again? And certainly, if he had the sense to pick Hannah in the first place and she was so damned good for him, why wouldn’t Hannah realize that he still has that good common sense that led him to her in the first place, so he’s still capable of finding another good woman by himself? And that he doesn’t need to be led by the hand in order to find someone else?
Some of the feelings Michael the widower had in this book didn’t ring true to me, either. From page 318:
How well she knew me, how well she’d known how I’d react once she left this world. But for the first time since I’d lost her, I felt not only alive, but — to my complete surprise — happy. I saw now that her letter had freed me; it’d given me permission to live. The letter, with her list, was a testament of her love.
Once again, we have the saintly Hannah, and the barely-thinking, barely-able-to-reason Michael — who is of all things a doctor and should understand at bare minimum what the grief cycle is all about — and I just don’t buy it.
Either this man had the sense he was born with to pick wisely once, so he can pick wisely a second time without being led by the hand, or he didn’t — but if he didn’t, he needs a lot more help than the manipulative, meddling Hannah could ever possibly give him.
There are not words for how much I profoundly disliked and despised this book, and I hadn’t expected to feel this way as I have enjoyed just about every other book Debbie Macomber has ever written — most especially the ones featuring scatterbrained angels Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. Those are funny, heartwarming and even healing books that make me laugh and think.
But all Hannah’s List made me think was this: open season on the widow(er). Because apparently Ms. Macomber does not believe a widow, or widower, can think for him or herself and must be led, kicking and screaming, back into life by the first available man (or woman, or alien, or whatever) who’s willing to take an interest before it’s too late.
Humph!
Research in progress to finish Michael’s fourth “Columba” story
I’ve been quiet this week, folks, partly because earlier this week was the sixth-year observance of my late husband Michael’s death. I don’t enjoy this — who does? — but I feel it’s important to do my best to remember his life, and what he meant to me (I do this every day, but try especially hard during this particular week), and re-dedicate myself toward this difficult, often frustrating and sometimes rewarding business of writing.
Michael left behind a fourth “Columba” story that is, at best, 1/3 finished. I know the title, which I will not share right now, and I know the circumstances Columba and her husband, the Duc d’Sanchestre, were in after they attempted to cross to his demesne but ended up somewhere else instead.
Complicating matters, I don’t have any notes for this story or universe — none whatsoever, unlike the “Maverick” universe (where there’s two completed stories there I’ve finished, and two novels I’m working on), which has plenty — all I have is the title, my knowledge of Michael’s writing style, and the completed 1/3 (or maybe 1/4) I have of the story to work with.
What I’ve done is figure out the setting — Michael has set this well, but I need to know how I can continue to describe it as it doesn’t come naturally to me — figure out some of what’s about to happen next, and because I know these characters very well (even though I’ve never written them before, I’ve read these stories over and over as they are outstanding), I believe I’ll be able to start writing the fourth story (or at least my continuation of it) very soon.
Very few authors have attempted what I’m doing — what I’ve already done to a degree with Michael’s “Joey Maverick” stuff — most especially in the realm of trying to finish in the same style as the original author . A husband-wife pair (or spousal unit pair, if you prefer), where only one is left to finish the work of the deceased, is even more rare — I know of Ariel Durant, the much younger wife of Will Durant, completing her husband’s work, and of a few SF authors (Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore, perhaps Janet Asimov to a degree) working in their late husband’s universes by permission or actually finishing stories in their late husband’s style.
At any rate, it can be done, but it’s difficult and often frustrating — this is not the writing that comes easily to me, and it tends to block out everything else I want to do until I’ve gotten enough of it out that I can get back to my work — and that’s the main reason my blog is languishing at present.
Aside from that, I continue to submit stories, write more stories, and edit various things — so I’m doing whatever I can to keep my dreams alive.
I can only believe that Michael would very much approve.
—–
Note: Please, please go to eQuill Publishing and look for my late husband’s “Columba” stories — it’s not too late for his work to gain a following.
Here’s the link:
http://www.equillpublishing.com/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=13
Barb Caffrey's Blog 