Terms

When I sat down to pen my entry in this year's 3 Day Novel Contest, I was only sure of two things:

1. It was going to be an uphill battle, especially compared to last year, when I knew exactly what story I wanted to tell and had a complete outline to work from.
2. I wanted to try to tell the story I had given up on during last year's NaNoWriMo. At the time, I just couldn't write the story I wanted to tell, so I set it aside. I blamed my failure at NaNo on a lot of things: my new job, an under-developed idea, and an under-developed world. So I kept it in the back of my mind for nearly a year and just let it sit there, waiting.

What I didn't understand at the time was that it was a combination of several factors holding me back. The three I described above were definitely a part of the problem, but the biggest problem was me. There wasn't enough of me in that story to make it feel real, to make it connect with my audience, or to even get it written. My heart wasn't in it yet.

And then this year happened. A lot changes in a year. While struggling with a job that made me miserable, I broke the story down until I was left with nothing but a disconnected skeleton. And as I watched what was happening in the world - from the Sandy Hook shooting and the Boston bombing, to taking note every time a stranger held open a door for me - I started to put the framework of my story back together.

I started working off of three assumptions:

1. The world is going to hell right in front of us
2. People are capable of doing truly terrible things
3. People are capable of doing truly wonderful things

I wasn't setting out to write a story about grief and loss. The things that have happened in my own life since the end of 2012 decided that for me, the minute the clock struck midnight and my fingers hit the keys. Because I opened with a girl who was dealing with the loss of her sister. Not a dying sister, but one who is dead before the story even begins. I don't want to make my readers sad, I don't want to make them cry - I want them to feel empowered. I want them to accept the terms I've laid out for this story, and I want them to walk away feeling like they can make a difference.

In order to get there, though, I had to have my heroine start off vulnerable and broken. And because the story is told in the first person, I had to let myself be vulnerable and broken in a way I haven't before. Because that's what I've been for the past few months, and it took writing this story to get me to come to terms with that. I don't have a sister, but somehow my pain became my character's pain, and it feels more real to me than anything else I've done. When I let myself get lost in writing it, I couldn't stop. I still can't stop.

There won't be a certificate to hang on my wall from this year's novel contest, because I didn't finish in 3 days. I wasn't even close to finished in 3 days. I didn't submit any portion of my story for judging. But I came away with something better: the knowledge that I survived. Not just the weekend, not just the past year, but everything. Everything that life has ever thrown at me, I have gotten through it, and I'm better because of it. Writing my way to this realization is so much more powerful than all of the doctor's appointments and prescription drugs and therapist meetings combined.

My grandmother died on Monday. At 97 years old, she was the strongest person I've ever known. As a historian I can look at her life and marvel at the things she lived through that will only ever be marks on a timeline for me. And she experienced real, tragic loss in her life: my grandfather and my mom's only sister died only a few years apart. As a frail old lady she survived breast cancer. She saw enough of the bad things in this world to turn anyone into a cynic. But she was the kindest, most generous person you could ever hope to meet. I see her strength and generosity in my mother and hope that, someday, I can show my own children what it means to be strong.

And so it's ironic that - although I stripped away much of the original story when I reimagined and rewrote it - I never changed the name of my main character. This character, who represents everything it means to be strong when your world comes crashing down around you, was named for the women in my family, long before even I realized what that really meant. She bears my grandmother's last name, my mother's maiden name, a name that I only inherited in spirit: Minter.

I tell you all of this so that you know, when I say that writing this story is the hardest thing I've ever done - that's it's the most rewarding, most difficult challenge I've ever faced - you know what that means. So that when you read this story, you understand. That not only do the pain and grief and doubt and terrible things come from somewhere within me, but so does the strength, so does the triumph. This is fiction, but to me, it so, so real.

Let yourself feel the grief and sadness of life. Just don't let that be all you feel. Let the hard times make you stronger, so that you can appreciate all the good in the world. Cry in the shower, but dance in the rain.