So... I wrote a new short story. It's a sequel to "The Man on the Buckskin Horse," but if you haven't read that yet, you will be able to enjoy this story anyway. Here's the synopsis:
Can storytelling save a life?
Emma the warm-hearted midwife transforms into a prairie Scheherazade, using storytelling to fight death while delivering her step-daughter's baby.
Whether you're rejoining your favorite characters from "The Man on the Buckskin Horse" or meeting them for the first time, this story of a blizzard birth on the Nebraska frontier will warm your heart any time of year.This is the gift I hinted about the other day :-) You can read "No Match for a Good Story" right now, for free. How? Just visit my official website, where you can read it online, download and print it, or even download a version to load onto your Kindle.
I will eventually have this available for free on Amazon and Barnes & Noble's website, but that's proving to take longer than I'd expected. So for right now, this is the only place you can get this story.
It does have a page on Goodreads already, though :-) If you want to review it there, you are welcome to do so!
Merry Christmas, my friends. Enjoy!
This is such a wonderful story. (And I did go ahead and review it on GR :-) )
ReplyDeleteThe more I think about it, the more I realize Rosalind and I have in common. Which is really cool. Because I've occasionally read stories where the female POV character reminds me of myself--but I can't think of any other stories where the female POV character [who is not like me] is observing someone who reminds me of myself. It's like . . . a brief glimpse into how other people see me? Maybe?
Anyway, I enjoy it very much :-)
Thanks, Jessica!
DeleteI'm so intrigued that you identify so strongly with Rosalind. Why? Because all thru writing "Buckskin Horse" I complained to DKoren about how I was failing as a writer because I couldn't get inside Rosalind's head at all. I had no idea how she thought or why she behaved as she did, or what was going on with her. She did her thing, she was who she was, and I couldn't ever really "get" her. When I picked up the characters again to write this sequel, I had the same experience -- Rosalind did her thing and I just let her be.
But... maybe it doesn't mean I'm a failure as a writer. Maybe it just means I've got a character here who is fundamentally different from me in personality and character type. That would explain a lot. Because... to be honest, you often mystify me. And Rosalind mystifies me.
SO VERY INTERESTING!
And I'm glad you enjoyed it :-)
I mystify you? *grins* I guess . . . yeah, people kind of tell me that a lot. That I'm a mystifying person.
DeleteSo I had to think for a long time about why I identify with Rosalind, so I could try to put it into words. Here's what I came up with (I hope I can express this properly, but no guarantees):
I see Rosalind as someone who--like me--experiences what I can best describe as Changeling Syndrome. When I say Changeling Syndrome, I basically mean . . . having a really hard time identifying with, and immersing oneself in, physical reality. It's this feeling that the world of flesh and blood Just Doesn't Make Sense, and probably never will make sense, as far as you're concerned. You don't feel hostility towards it; but at the same time, you don't feel like you really belong to it, either; and you're not sure it accepts you, at all.
Can you picture the feeling I'm trying to get at? Like you're a . . . changeling? Some fairy dropped you off here; and now you just don't know how to fit in?
I think this is why Rosalind is so withdrawn, and distant. And I think it's why I (as I've been told) come across as withdrawn, too. Like I said, it's not a feeling of hostility, at all--I just am not sure I GET THIS. So I kind of tend to withdraw myself from it, and observe, as much as I can . . .
Also, I think this is why Rosalind reacts to the whole experience of childbirth the way she does: Emma tries to reassure her by saying something like, "Oh, millions of women all over the world go through this! You'll be fine!" And Rosalind is . . . Hashtag Not Impressed; because "the world" isn't really her jam in the first place. And what does end up helping her is not something physically-oriented, at all; it's much more psychological and even (in a sense) mystical. Telling stories, nonstop, through the night. That's what I would need, too, if I were ever going through something like that.
All this to say: I definitely DON'T think you failed, as a writer. I think you created a character who is Very Cool Indeed, and one whom I identify with very strongly :-)
Yeah, you do. I routinely scratch my head and feel puzzled over the way you view the world because it is so often very different from my own.
DeleteI think Rosalind was not always this withdrawn, but her mother's death was a bigger blow to her than anyone imagined, and exacerbated any I-don't-fit-in-here feelings she may have already had. Almost more like she was purposely remaining numb because that was easier than getting involved with life again.
But even with all of that, I think she still is someone I just... can't get my head around, for whatever reason. I'm glad to hear that this doesn't make her entirely inaccessible or improbable!
You're right--it is very different!! I think that's one reason why we have such polar-opposite views on so many movies, for example: we're literally not SEEING the same movie, because we see the world in such opposite ways. People talk casually about someone "wearing rose-colored glasses," but I think you and I are BOTH wearing colored glasses . . . we just happen to have the opposite colors *grins*
DeleteYep. I absolutely agree with that. And I'm quite sure that, if I'd ever been through such a serious trauma, my own feelings of alienation/withdrawal/whatever-you-call it would be FAR more noticeable than they are now. As it is, it's just kind of a fun quirk; but with Rosalind, it goes even deeper.
Nope, it doesn't, at all! It makes me like her even more :-)