Ok, really cool experience: I was invited into my colleague’s Grade 12 Writer’s Craft class to talk about my experience as a writer. Me, considered a writer by other people!

It was a bit strange to play a different role in the classroom–in my own school, with many of my former students. I’m used to knowing the whole class and engaging them with lessons and activities. When I invite guest speakers, I’m conscious of my role as host–not as “expert”.

That Adam, my colleague, thought I could offer a different perspective as a writer made me feel pretty good. Up till now, I kinda figured you have to have, you know, written (read: published) a book before anyone would listen to anything I had to say on writing.

Turns out, I could offer a lot simply from my own learning experience. (Ok, I could offer something. Whether it was “a lot” can only be determined by the students in the class).

I liked that I could share with them not only what I learned, but it made me more open to talking about my failures–or, if I’m trying to keep a positive spin on things, my not-yet-successful writing attempts.

Here’s what I talked about:

• Wanting to be a writer since I was 8 years old (my first “published” story of Santa and his elves. It was published because my mom typed it up. And I got a “Super Kid” Woody Woodpecker sticker on it. Woohoo!)
• Applying to university writing programs only to be dissuaded by my practically-minded parents. “There’s no money in writing”, they said (true). “Better to go into journalism which is still writing but where there are jobs.” (turned out to be false). I told the students that advice, was in fact, like telling someone who wants to learn how to drive transport trailers to go get their motorcycle licence. Both are vehicles, but no where near the same thing. Having said that, I did warn them about the harsh realities of making money (or, more accurately, not making money) as a fiction author.
• I talked about the well-known cliche, “write what you know”. I re-interpreted that: write what you know about how you feel. It’s not so much the details and content of your experiences so much as the emotions you remember from it that you want to reproduce for your characters. I read excerpts from my first book about how details of my protagonist Mackenna’s life reflect my own. I related my own stories about young adult romance and crushed hearts (ahem, Dan) then showed how I used the intensity of those emotions in my writing.
• I talked about what I’ve learned from Jennie, specifically:
  • Add more specific detail to your backstory and your world so everything is logical. I read before-and-after examples in my newest version of Lyra’s story to illustrate the difference.
  • And the other well-worn writerly advice: “show, don’t tell.” I told the students I was convinced I was doing that. I had the nicest prose–even mentioned (and, yes, I quote directly) Jennie said I have “brilliant writing.” That’s when I explained to them that showing means staying inside the character’s head, not having the character tell the reader what happened to her. Again, I read excerpts to illustrate the difference.
• I finished with “advice”. Writing is hard. Rejection sucks. If you keep at it, call yourself a writer. You deserve to.
• Bonus: I offered to give feedback on writing the students are doing on their own time (not wanting to step on Adam’s toes for his class assignments!) I remember needing that outside advice/opinion (hi Jennie!). I’m no book coach, nor do I pretend to be. Just want to give some encouragement to emerging writers. You know what? One student actually e-mailed me. Makes me feel like I can give something back. That got me thinking and now I have plans to expand my site to include some “how-to” tips (for what they’re worth). Still working out those details, but stay tuned…

Conclusion? I loved sharing my own writing process with the students. So, if anyone wants to sign me up as a guest speaker, I now have experience. 🙂

My focus recently has been on creating the backstory, the logic of Lyra’s world that will explain why things happen the way they are happening: how she discovers she has phoenix cells, why her parents would go on the run, how they’re eventually caught, etc.

But what I learned is that it’s not just Lyra’s backstory–it also belongs to her mom and her dad and her sister and the doctor who discovers her phoenix cells and the woman Lyra befriends and the boy who helps her and all the other secondary characters who appear in Lyra’s life.

Lyra may be the star, but each character who orbits her is the star in his or her own life–which means for their actions to make sense when they interact with Lyra, they, too, have to have a full, comprehensive and detailed backstory. For example, why have I made Lyra’s mom Charlotte more paranoid about getting caught than her dad John? Because I’ve made Charlotte a war veteran. She was a soldier in the war overseas who saw the horrors and futility of war; she’s seen first hand what her military superiors are capable of and therefore fears even more for Lyra’s safety than her dad, who is a civilian.

I’m creating another character, Mama Jua, an old woman who befriends Lyra. To many around her, she seems like a saint: she helps orphans and dispenses wisdom and kindness, and laughs with a unique joie-de-vivre in these dark, plague-ridden times. Yet, I don’t want her to be a stock character, a wise-old woman whose only purpose is to guide Lyra. Yes, she does all that, but why? Because Mama Jua is estranged from her own adult daughter. Because Mama Jua often ignored her own daughter as a child, she now feels compelled to make up for that by helping kids today. Which of course, begs the question, why did Mama Jua ignore her daughter? I have to be able to answer that, even if none of it appears in the novel, because it influences how I write Mama Jua’s interaction with Lyra.

All those characters…that’s a lot of work ahead of me.

Now I’m thinking, maybe I should have stranded Lyra on a deserted island.

Alone.

When I mentioned to my husband that I was revising my opening scene, he said that since I now know how to improve it, my work will just flow.

In fact, he’s wrong. (Sorry dear!) That was precisely my problem before–I wrote in the style I’d been writing in for the past 20 years. The “info dump” and vague detail way. So any writing that feels natural, that’s “flowing”, I now recognize isn’t quite right.

It’s hard to break old habits! Now I have to carefully analyze every thought and phrase I put onto the page instead of just letting the “sense” of how it all fits together rule the day.

Here’s what I realized:

I always imagined a story had a narrator (true) who was telling you what happened (false). I pictured the protagonist sitting in front of me with a cup of coffee/glass of wine (you know, depending on his or her age) explaining what had gone on in his or her life before.

Jennie wants me to do the opposite–it’s not someone chatting to me, the reader, over drinks; it’s me, the reader, living those moments at the same time as the protagonist. When Jennie kept telling me to get inside Lyra’s head, I believed I was doing just that–I was telling the reader Lyra’s perspective on the events. But I was still having Lyra narrate the story. I’m still the reader sitting across from her, listening. I’m not actually living the thoughts as Lyra lives them. In other words, if Lyra wouldn’t say those lines to herself, in her own mind, then I as the writer can’t use them either.

Turns out that’s more of a challenge. How do I get across all that backstory to the reader when Lyra knows it so well? How do I explain who her sister is and when she died and how when Lyra already knows all those answers?

I don’t have the answers, but I think once I crack that nut then finally, finally, my story will flow.

(Fingers crossed.)

Comments from my book coach Jennie after a lengthy and comprehensive chat:

“I think you have a really great career ahead of you.”

(Yay!)

“It’s brilliant writing.”

(Yay!)

“You’re so good. You have an amazing character and audiences will love her.”

(Yay!)

“You’ve got work to do.”

(Oh.)

Jennie has pointed out two broad areas to work on.

1. Building up my world and background to include much more detail.
   • For example, I have a plague and a war and phoenix cells. How do they all connect? (Um…)
   • Make sure everything is logical and fits in. I have Lyra’s neighbour joke that she’s going to set Lyra up with her grandson; it’d be good if I show the grandson at some point.
2. Avoiding the dreaded “info dump”.  It’s where you step out of the character’s head and, as the author, explain all the information you feel the reader needs. It’s jarring because it takes the reader out of the story. I did it in my first version and Jennie noticed I’m doing it again here.
   • I blame this (and Jennie agrees it’s a factor) on my journalistic background. I’m used to summarizing and convey information to a reader. As an English teacher teaching analytical essays, I do the same thing. Turns out that’s not what makes a great story.
   • Example: “Doctors discovered my shocking and unique condition when I was 8, when I survived the unsurvivable, a devastating virus called Hecate’s Plague.” This is telling. I am telling you the backstory you need to know. How to improve it: “I watched the casket being lowered into the ground with Mrs. Jua inside, another victim of Hecate’s Plague. I feel guilty standing here, alive, invincible. The plague came for me once, when I was eight, but it couldn’t get me. It’ll never get me.”

So that’s it, that’s all. That’s all I have to do–oh, besides write the rest of it.

Since I’ve learned there’s another perspective on writing, thanks to my book coach Jennie, I’ve become more critical of the traditional advice established writers give to emerging writers. I believe the crux of the advice is sound, but the way it’s given is counterproductive.

I was recently given a book, Letters to a Young Writer by award-winning author Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin, which I loved.

Here are some examples of the advice, why it’s unhelpful and what it should be instead:

1. Advice: “Be earnest. Be devoted. Be subversive of ease… Fail. Take pause. Accept the rejections. Be vivified by collapse. Practice resuscitation. Have wonder.”

Why it’s Unhelpful: Failure and rejection are part of the gig, and yes, we should all have wonder and “be vivified by collapse.” But is that useful? To hear an award-winning author who teaches creative writing say “be happy you’re failing!”

What it Should Be: Rejection sucks. It’s demoralizing and difficult and even if failure will lead to a better book, it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with at the moment. I can tell you to hang in there, but I don’t have to because you already are. And that’s what you should focus on. Give yourself a gold star for writing even one word. No one else is going to (yet) but you deserve  it, because writing is hard, no matter what any non-writer says.

2. Advice: “Each year my first class in the Hunter College MFA [Masters of Fine Arts] program begins with the statement that I won’t be able to teach the students anything at all. This comes as bit of a shock to the twelve young men and women who have decided to devote themselves to the crafty, sullen art…I don’t mean my opening statement to them every semester as an act of discouragement: it is, I hope the exact opposite. I can teach you nothing. Now that you know this, go learn.”

Why it’s Unhepful:Uh… because you as the student in his class are paying thousands of dollars for him to do just that–teach you. This, in my opinion, is a copout. What if we said to the structural engineer, hey, let me just guide you and you figure out the magical way to create something extraordinary? Ok, you’ll argue, writing and bridge-building are entirely different and one is necessary to our physical safety while the other is not. But what if this very attitude–you can’t “teach” writing–is why 99% of manuscripts get rejected by literary agents? What if it’s because (like me) many of these writers are self-taught, based on advice like this, so we flounder? Yes, there will be people who just instinctively get it. Most of us won’t. There are hundreds of writing programs in universities and colleges all across the world, so obviously the people taking our tuition think it can be taught.

What it Should be: There are many different ways to write. As your teacher, I’m going to show you the process, step-by-step, that works for me. You may find that it doesn’t work for you and that’s fine–but don’t assume you can wing it. Doctors don’t wing it; lawyers don’t wing it; police officers don’t wing it. They’re all highly trained first. If you’re serious about your craft, you need to learn the fundamentals. Writing is not mysterious or magical–it may come across that way when you read it–but it’s not. I will teach you what to do–then how you do it is up to you.

3. Advice: “[The young writer] must read everything that comes her way. The classics, the old books that speak to her from the shelves, the tomes recommended by teachers, the chapbooks left on subway seats, the old dog-eared novels in the railway station, the ancient hardcover in the holiday cottage…. A young writer must also read contemporaries. Fiercely and jealously. She must go into the bookshop and spend hours in awe and contemplation.”

Why It’s Unhelpful: Reading is good, yes. Necessary, yes. But the pressure! Does Mr. McCann not realize that, practically-speaking, what he’s suggesting is impossible? That most writers do not make a living off their work–especially new, emerging writers who have yet to publish? That most writers have day jobs and families and responsibilities outside of their writing, that there simply isn’t time to read as he suggests? When, pray tell, was the last time I had hours to spend at a bookshop, let alone in awe and contemplation?

What it Should Be: Read when you can. It’s helpful to look at how other people write. I know you have a busy life–made even harder by trying to fit in a job that is unpaid and, at the moment, no one else cares about–so read when you can. And give yourself a gold star for reading even one word.

So, you see? I have it all figured out. All I need is the bestselling novel and the awards and then I’ll be all set to dispense advice, too. 🙂

Ever tried to describe a dream to someone when you wake up? It’s clear in your mind–at first–and it seemed to make sense–you think–until you start talking.

“I had a dream last night that I was in my house…” you may start. It’s a good place to start. The person you’re talking to either lives there or knows your house, so you’ve given a point of reference. Only, the house in your dream wasn’t entirely like the reality of your actual home, so you try to describe it. “Except the kitchen was bigger and there was no extra bedroom, and we had only three blades of grass in the yard.” But then you think about your description. You realize your listener is picturing your kitchen, but simply bigger. That’s when you realize in the dream the kitchen wasn’t just bigger, but… different. Yet, how was it different? You know it, you can still picture it from your dream, but how to explain it so your listener pictures exactly what you saw?

That’s writing for you.

You have in your head a clear, vivid picture of your world/character/setting/action. It all makes sense to you, but how do you make sure you’re conveying the right images?

Yeah, I don’t know either. 🙂

But I’ll keep working on it so you can see the Lyra who lives in my head. I’d love for you to meet her someday.

That’s my dream.

I’ve written the last scene. It’s over. Lyra has completed her journey, finished her quest.

There’s only a small, tiny, itty-bitty, little problem that is stopping me from celebrating: I haven’t actually written anything in between the opening and the closing.

My book coach Jennie has me writing the final scene, the one that best demonstrates how Lyra has changed, grown and developed over the course of my story.

Uh, yeah. Right.

It’s not that I don’t know how Lyra changed, grew or developed–Jennie had me working on a brief outline to ensure I thought about that before I started writing–it’s just that I have no detail about how to reflect those changes.

In drafts and novels past, I’d start writing and see where my story ended up. Go back through these blog posts and you’ll see how I struggled with what Lyra’s ending should be. I’d change it up, then have to go back and rewrite earlier scenes so the trajectory made sense. From one scene to the next, I’d sit and think about what should come next. For sure when I started, I had no idea where I’d end up.

Jennie proposes a different strategy: Know where you’re going before you start. That’s not to say you can’t change the destination en route–nor does mean you need to take the initially-planned path–but at least you have some idea. Here’s the obvious analogy: I’d like to go south. If you don’t know where in the south (Florida? the Carribbean? Mexico? The Cook Island in the South Pacific?) you’ll have a harder time trying to determine the best way to get there. (I dare you to drive to the Cook Islands). You’d save yourself a lot of time and effort if you looked into flights first. It’s true you can’t anticipate what you’ll encounter on your way, but if you’re not in a rush (ah, there’s the rub), then enjoy the journey.

But you know what the problem with writing the ending is now?

It’s hard.

Instead, I say, why do today what you can put off until tomorrow! After all, it’s the ending, and I’m still not sure about the beginning…

It’ll come to me later, I told myself. Jennie is being unrealistic if she expects me to know now my brilliant plot twist that will reveal to Lyra how she grows as a character. I didn’t know that Katniss, from The Hungers Games (spoiler alert!), would try to outsmart the Capitol by pretending to eat the poisonous berries, thereby guaranteeing no victor for the Games, until the end. Couldn’t it be the same for Lyra? I could wait until the end to find out…

Only, Jennie assures me, the writer is actually supposed to know what happens. It’s true you’ll read about famous authors who have done the opposite–and I don’t dispute their experience. Except, I tried that. See my book in the bookstore yet? Yeah, me neither. So that strategy, successful as it may be for others, ain’t gonna work for me.

Still, with Jennie’s deadline approaching, I grew more sullen and irritable. This is a waste. I can’t do this. I don’t know how the plot is suppose to reflect Lyra’s development. It just is, with this very cool thing that she’s going to discover. It’s the plot twist that the readers will never see coming, but, upon re-reading will be as obvious as the sun. Only… what is it?

I was *this* close to emailing Jennie and saying I couldn’t do it.

And then a thought… and some research–was my idea even scientifically reasonable–even in a world where someone lives with phoenix cells? No matter the world a writer creates, it has to abide by certain logic. Lyra’s world runs very much like our own–only more scientifically and medically advanced. But still, would my idea work?

I’m talking blood and viruses and antibodies and cures. I’m no scientist (bless his heart, my Grade 12 physics teacher, upon meeting me at my 10-year high school reunion, said he remembered me. “Science wasn’t your interest,” he said politely. My Grade 11 chemistry teacher, upon learning I wouldn’t pursue chemistry in what was then Grade 13, said “Good.”) Since I never took advanced biology, (a relief to all the biology teachers at my high school, no doubt), I was at a disadvantage.

Thank goodness for Google.

(Note to writers: have a clear explanation ready when your significant other innocently looks over your shoulder, trying to show genuine interest in your work and sees you googling treatments for life-threatening viruses.)

But I got my answer. I have my plot twist.

It’s true it may change, and I am loathe to share it with you now in case a) it changes and then I’ll look really, really stupid for believing something I thought was a brilliant idea was, in fact, stupid, or b) it works so well I don’t want to give away the end so you can enjoy the suspense of the novel when it is in bookstores. 🙂 )

Regardless, Lyra has learned what she needs to learn.

The End.

(As soon as I go back and fill in the middle…)

For both my YA novels, I have in mind strong, female protagonists. Think Katniss from The Hunger Games or Tris, from Divergent, or, more recently, Laia from An Ember in the Ashes.

Both Lyra (Phoenix Cell Savior) and Evangeline (On the Side of Angels) will struggle, will fight, and may or may not prevail (won’t give away all my secrets!) but regardless, they will portray young women who are smart, resourceful and determined.

It seems a no-brainer in this day and age that a female lead character can embody these traits. In fact, it seemed that way to me when The Hunger Games came out in 2008.

But with a misogynist like Donald Trump in power in the U.S., and thankfully, our own prime minister, Justin Trudeau, an avowed feminist, on the world stage to contrast Trump, the awareness of struggles of women in developed countries has become, for me, more acute. Honestly, I thought we were beyond all this. Never once have I experienced discrimination as a woman–professionally or personally–but I’m becoming more aware of how many women still do. (My own naivety for not seeing that before, maybe?)

Which got me thinking about the subtle, unspoken messages in our society about the role of women.

Consider a common image for washrooms: a stick-figure woman in a skirt. When I talk to my students about this, I ask how many girls in the class are actually wearing skirts. Often the answer is none, or maybe one or two. Certainly it’s the minority. In other words, the unquestioned and accepted symbol of a woman looks nothing like most modern women today (at least in our western world). Yet we persist in identifying women in that way. Why?

Consider card games: the queen is always lower in rank to the king. You may argue, well, that’s the way it is–Queen Elizabeth’s husband is called Prince Philip, not “King”, because that would put him “above” her. But why? Why does the queen, the woman, have to have a lesser value than men? I decided, therefore, that in our household, they wouldn’t.

When I first proposed my new changes (since there are so many variations of card games, why not this one?), my family laughed. But then, my two daughters (and, yes, my husband, too) liked the idea. Why not make women equal to men in these trivial, seemingly insignificant games? So, I decreed (as only a parent can) that when the kids play card games in our house, they have to adapt the games to ensure the king and queen are equal (either the cards are played interchangeably or each round they take turns about which face card is the “higher” value).

When my girls, ages 10 and 12,  mentioned this to their (female) friends, the friends loved the idea. When a male friend overheard the conversation, he balked. “You can’t change that!” he argued. My strong, independent daughter argued back: “Why not?”

Why not, indeed. So much of our culture holds assumptions we rarely recognize, let alone question. I don’t know what assumptions will go unrecognized in my novels, but I’m going to work damn hard to alter the ones I do see.

Example: the titles (honorifics) of angels in On the Side of Angels will be gender-neutral; there is no “Mr., Ms., Mrs., etc.” in the Seven Hea

Example: Not once in Lyra’s fight for her freedom in Phoenix Cell Savior will her gender be mentioned as a role in her quest, her obstacles or her success/failure.

Example: In On the Side of Angels, Evangeline’s mother isn’t referred to as a “farmer’s wife”; she’s referred to as a farmer.

Example: Each will have a love interest because I’m tired of the idea that to fight the “damsels-in-distress” image, girls can’t be allowed to want a boyfriend or to get married. Is that so bad, to want someone who loves you and understands you? I’m not advocating passivity, but I’m not about to promote single life as be-all-and-end-all. I’m all about choice–and what choices are right for my characters.

With these two novels, will I change the world? Decrease discrimination against women?

Hardly.

But it doesn’t matter. I plan to change the world one card game at a time. 🙂

p.s. My usual source for photos, Pixabay.com, had no photos of the four queens, so I had to source the above pic elsewhere. Credit where credit is due: By Enoch Lau – Own work (photo), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org

By contrast, Pixabay had this:

Only kings, no queens? Just sayin’…

Yay! I’m back at it! The actual writing part–not the thinking-through-what-my-character-wants-and why-it matters part.

Only this time, as you know, I’m taking a more strategic approach. Before, when I had a good idea for a book or story, I’d start hammering out the words, never thinking about what had to be in an opening scene to make it effective.

Now, I know better (or know more, anyway). Here’s what I’ve learned should be included in an opening scene:

• What needs to happen
• Who it needs to happen to
• Why it needs to happen now
• What the protagonist wants (internal desire)
• Why she wants it
• What her misbelief (internal fear) is
• The consequences of the event (action)
• The context of the story
• The context of the world/setting
• Why the event and consequences matter
• What the event means to the protagonist at this moment in her life
• Explain that there’s a secret and why it’s important
• Tell the reader where the story is going
• Give it all away! (Readers care about why and how something happens more than “what” happens).
• Make clear the protagnoist’s subjective worldview
• (And don’t equate suspense with giving the reader too little information to care)

Oh, and be entertaining and engaging.

Uh, yeah, right…

Ok, here goes… draft 1 (ok, I’ve written this section a dozen times already, but let’s call it draft 1):

Introducing the first scene of The Phoenix Cell Savior (my new and not-yet-determined title!) (And yes, for the moment, as much as I cringe, I’m going with the American spelling…)

   “No.”

     The word burns on my lips, bubbling up from the lava of long-simmering anger boiling within me. I match my mom’s hard, determined stare.

     “I’m not going.”

     Mom sucks in a small breath, her lips pursed into a thin “o”.

     “This is not a negotiation, Lyra.” Mom grips her hands on the back of the shabby couch in our shabby rented bungalow in this rundown part of town in this rundown corner of upstate New York. “We have to leave. They’re too close.”

     They. The they that has haunted me for half my childhood, the reason we’ve been on the run for nine years.

     The government agents who hunt us like animals because of me.

     Because I am a freak of nature.

     Because I am the only one in the world who has a genetic mutation called “phoenix cells”—cells that always regenerate no matter the injury or illness.

     Which makes me immortal.

     Which makes me the key to our government’s world domination.

     Doctors discovered my shocking and unique condition when I was 8, when I survived the unsurvivable, a devastating virus called Hecate’s Plague that killed everyone who was infected with it, including my little six-year-old sister Ivy.

     My parents discovered my shocking and unique value when the doctors and scientists and researchers kept me isolated for months on end painfully prodding and probing every inch of my body with excruciating thoroughness. After I endured biopsies and surgeries and bone marrow needles the length of my hand, my parents learned the tests were not for my benefit, but for the government’s. We—America—had recently started a war overseas against the Middle-Eastern Bloc of nations and military researchers believed they could finish it by cloning my cells. Imagine an army of super soldiers who could never die…. Imagine the possibilities for future wars…

     Instead, my parents imagined my torture and rescued me from my living hell.

     We’ve been on the run ever since.

     In nine years, I have lived in 21 towns across America, have had 21 different names and 21 different makeovers.

     Today is supposed to be number 22.

     Mom, a former concert violinist in our old life, our real life, rushed home this morning from her job at the coin-operated laundry in the almost-barren strip mall on the edge of Route 16, with steely resolve. “I saw them,” she told my dad and me, as she grabbed our patched-up backpacks from the hall closet.

     She’d S.O.S’d my dad at his work—he’d been an accountant before, but now he paints houses. When he got Mom’s message, he dropped his roller mid-stroke on Mrs. Tillerson’s living room wall, and rushed out. The consequence will be, no doubt, another lost job. We can’t afford another lost job.

     Now Dad sits on the lumpy couch, his hand resting lightly on top of Mom’s iron grip. At one time, I thought their affection for each other was cute, but now it’s irritating. In a household of three, it’s always two against one.

     “You know she’s being paranoid,” I say to Dad. “She sees boogeymen everywhere.”

     “Watch your tone, Lyra,” Dad snaps.

     My chin flies up as if I’d been slapped. Yes, Dad always sides with Mom, always demurs to her sightings, always picks up and moves without complain, but he’s always sympathetic to my frustrations.

     “Someday…” he’d say wistfully, drawing me into a bear hug.

     Well, that someday is now.

     I look hard at Dad, then at Mom.

     “I’m done.”

     I swipe up my leather jacket, stamp to the door and the whole cardboard bungalow shakes when I slam it.

     I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. The anger, the lava beast within me, roils and churns. No more. I’m not going to be a pawn in anybody’s game anymore—my parents’ or the government’s. It’s my life; my choice. I will not accept an eternity of scurrying like a sewer rat, nor will I let the government turn me into a goddamn lab rat.

     Seething, I slip under the broken chain link fence at the end of our street and dart across the empty, wasteland of a field, still wet and muddy from the early April snow melt. My thin canvas thrift store shoes are soaked, but I don’t care. I don’t care about what’s “safe” or what’s “good for me” anymore. If I want to get my goddamn feet wet, then I’ll get my goddamn feet wet.

     I hear a train in the distance and I sprint toward the rusting railroad tracks that cut through the field. I jump onto the rails, the cold wind buffeting me. I feel my legs tremble from the vibrations on the iron rods, then I see the freight train round the curve in the distance, a roaring monster hurtling toward me.

     Move! Its shrill whistle shrieks.

     I don’t. I stand my ground, my feet spread apart, balancing on the rails, absorbing the shuddering tremors, and I scream into the gray air, a crazy, bitter laugh drowned by the thundering train. I feel my heart pump wildly and feel my skin prickle with goosebumps.

     But I don’t feel fear.

     At the last second, I fling myself off the track as the train clatters past and I feel alive. I smooth back my wild black curls even as I hear my mom’s exasperation in my head. Good God, Lyra, why do you have a death wish?

     I don’t, I constantly tell her. I have a life wish. I want to live, to feel the rush and exhilaration of being alive—not placidly accept the stifling drone of my existence.

     “That stifling drone of your existence has kept you safe these past nine years,” my mom always snaps.

     No fucking kidding.

     For the past nine years that we’ve been on the run—since I was 8—I have most definitely been safe. And secure. And protected. I have also been lonely. And isolated. And alone. Since I was 11 and begged my parents to let my new neighbor Piper stay for a sleepover and my parents refused in case she asked too many questions, I have been friendless. Since I was 13 and wanted to join the school’s volleyball team, which would have meant filling out a medical consent form and suspicion about us if we had not, I have been homeschooled. Since I was 16 and had to abandon my secret boyfriend without a word when we up and moved in the middle of the night, I have been dateless.

     I pick myself up, and swipe at the mud on my brown bomber leather jacket my prized possession. It’s real leather with a real sheepskin collar and a real, hefty price tag I could never afford. Good thing I know how to shoplift; good thing I know how to lie. Mom actually believed me when I gushed over my incredible “find” at the thrift store. That was four towns ago—or five?—no one’s coming after me for it.

     I feel calmer now, after my train-dodge. The lava beast recedes into its crevice in my stomach. It always does after I defy death, my favourite pastime. Base jumping with homemade parachutes was fun off the craggily cliffs in Utah (only six broken bones, all of which healed before I hobbled home) and rock climbing without ropes in the Appalachians was fun (rubbed my skin raw on all 10 fingers, plus a concussion, all of which healed before I made it home) and motocross racing in northern California with the secret boyfriend was fun (cracked ribs, cut cheek, all of which healed before the secret boyfriend and I returned to his home). If death can never find me, I can damn well chase it.

     I slog through the field back toward our neighbourhood. I take a deep breath. Once, I tried to calculate how many breaths I might take before I somehow, someday expire. I read that an average person who lives till 80 will breathe about 672 million times. How many more than that do I have in me? A billion? A trillion? A googol—10 to the 100^th power? Am I really immortal? Will I truly be here in a hundred years? A thousand? I age, obviously. I’m not frozen as an 8-year-old kid. The doctors—before they turned on us—told my parents they suspect I’ll age normally until I’m about 40 or so. That’s when normal people’s cells start to deteriorate—descending into old age. But they think I’ll keep aging at the rate I do now, which would make me live to 1,000.

     Yay. I’ll be a 1,000-year-old 40-year-old.

     Forever.

     The thought terrifies me. What am I going to do on my own for centuries? My parents will die—everyone I’ve ever encountered will die and I’ll still be, what, running from place to place, an ephemeral ghost on the fringes of society?

     My stomach squeezes in fear, the fear I live with every day, every minute of my forever life. Why can’t my parents see that? Why can’t they put aside their concerns for my safety just once to see what the real villain is?

     Hot tears sting my eyes and I impatiently brush them away. I’m supposed to be invincible, not melting into a blubbering mess. It’s a cruel irony that my phoenix cells will fix any physical symptom. I may feel pain, but it’s temporary and I have the comforting assurance it will always pass; why, God, in your malicious sense of humour, would you not grant me the same powers for my mind? Why make me immortal, then allow me to suffer interminably?

     No.

     Something’s got to change.

     It will change.

     I will change it. And my parents will just have to understand. They’ll have to accept that, as always, Mom’s being paranoid—like when we were in Michigan where we fled in the middle of the night because she saw a glint of a black vehicle on the highway outside of town. There are others who drive black cars—or the car could have been dark gray or midnight blue—or government agents may now drive tangerine and lemon-sherbert-coloured cars for all we know—but Mom insisted we pack up immediately.

     I sigh as I crawl underneath the fence, careful not to tear my jacket. I know my parents mean well. I understand they gave up their whole lives—their careers and friends and families—to keep me safe… but to stifle me… they’ll have to understand… they will understand… if I just do a better job of explaining it…

     I squelch across the ditch. My feet are sodden. And cold. I shiver in the gray chill. Maybe I shouldn’t have ventured into the field.  

     I scramble onto the crumbling road. Everything in this country is crumbling. After ten years, the MidEast War still drags on, draining every penny from the government coffers. I would never tell my parents this, but sometimes I wonder what would have happened had I remained a lab rat. Could my phoenix cells have stopped this war long ago, like the researchers wanted? Could I have saved the lives of the thousands of soldiers who have died overseas, the hundreds of thousands of MidEast civilians who were caught in the crossfire? Could I have prevented our government’s inhumane use of chemical weapons on its enemies? Have I single-handedly doomed our country and our world by not sacrificing myself and my cells all those years ago?

     I draw my jacket around me, hunched against the increasing wind, as I pass a small boarded up house, plastered with contamination stickers.

     Maybe it’s not just the war victims I could have saved.

     Maybe I could have saved our neighbour, Mrs. Rodrigues.

     She was a spritely, nosy old lady who insisted every time I passed her house that she would set me up with her 17-year-old grandson as soon as he came for a visit from Louisiana. I lied and said I had a boyfriend, but Mrs. Rodriguez scoffed. “You can never have too many boyfriends,” she laughed.

     Two days ago, she contracted Hecate’s Plague.

     The virus that killed my sister, that killed my childhood.

     It’s back and back with a vengeance.

     Across the country thousands of people have died and the government seems helpless to halt the scourge because all the research dollars to find a cure or vaccine were long ago diverted into military spending.

     But what if my cells could have helped? What if, nine years ago, the doctors looking to clone me, could also have used my cells to find a cure? After all, I survived the disease.

     I asked my mom about that one day when I was 10. It was the second anniversary of Ivy’s death. We were nowhere near her grave—never again could we visit it—but we were in another cemetery, pretending this was Ivy’s tombstone.

     “Could I have saved her?” I asked, my stomach knotting. I remember not knowing what I wanted the answer to be. Yes, you could have saved her and she’d still be with us but you didn’t, or no, you couldn’t have saved her and you’ll always have to live with the grief and pain and loss.

     Mom shook her head; a wave of relief washed over me, followed closely by a torrent of guilt. I was glad I couldn’t have saved Ivy? She’d been my best friend, my playmate, my real-life soul sister. Despite the two-year age difference and her blonde hair, everyone assumed we were twins.

     Mom tried to explain the science. “To create a cure, doctors need antibodies from a person who fought the disease; but your body used your phoenix cells—not antibodies—and your phoenix cells won’t work on other people. Their immune systems attack them.”

     “Then how come they want to clone me?”

     Mom sighed. “They thought they could replace all of someone’s cells with cells like yours.”

     “But that’s impossible… Then they’d be me instead of them.” I shuddered at the image in my mind of rows upon rows of camo-clad 10-year-old look-alike soldiers.

     “That’s why we’re here, honey,” Mom said, pulling me close.

     I don’t remember where “here” was then; long ago I gave up trying to track our meanderings. Sometimes we’d head north, across North Dakota; other times we were in Pennsylvania or Rhode Island. Often, we’d simply get into our non-descript car with “borrowed” license plates and just drive.

     For a moment I wonder where we’ll be tonight until I catch myself. We’ll be right here.

     I refocus and rehearse how I’m going to convince my parents. Rational and reasonable, that’s what I have to be. Keep the lava beast locked up. Don’t lose your temper.

     I repeat to myself: We don’t have to go. You probably saw health officials who were dealing with the plague and thought they were agents.

   Again: We don’t have to go. You probably saw health officials who were dealing with the plague and thought they were agents.

     Once more: We don’t have to g—

     I round the corner to my house.

     And stop dead in my tracks.

     The street is full of sleek, shiny new cars.

     Black cars.

     Agent cars.

     My stomach lurches and a streak of fear, as sharp as electricity, jolts through me.

     Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God… Mom was right…

     Why did I think we could stay? Why did I think we’d be safe? I stand, frozen, as coils of guilt and shame snake themselves around me. Agents, dressed in black swarm the street, like giant ants scouring for crumbs. I see a pair of burly agents emerge from our house. They drag my mom and dad out, their hands cuffed behind their backs.

     “Mom!” I instinctively screech and instantly I clamp my mouth shut.

     Too late.

     The agents’ heads swivel like robots toward me. In a nanosecond, they’ve drawn their guns; in a millisecond they’re after me, the footfalls of giant elephants pounding on the cracked pavement.

     “Run, Lyra!” Mom screams at me, her arms twisted behind her back, her face contorted with concern.

     I will never question my mom again.

     I run.

 Did I fit it all in? Did I answer all the questions? To be determined, but it’s a start. After all, how do you eat an elephant? 

One bite at a time.

Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot if difference. They don’t have to makes speeches. Just believing is usually enough.

–Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

So I may say that this blog is about revealing my writing process as it happens, so you, future reader of my future novels, can peek behind the curtain and see the work in progress, warts and restarts and all, and I may say this blog is to enlighten you on that progress, and I may say this blog is to offer you something you can get nowhere else and therefore entice you to continually return, but it’s also more than that: this blog is my tether to the world beyond my four walls. This blog is my reminder that there are people who believe in me even if I don’t yet have a polished product to foist onto the unsuspecting world.

So, um, yeah, thanks for reading 🙂