writing

Write Me

So I went to the Florida Writers Association conference last weekend. I met lots of other writers, rubbed shoulders with publishers and agents and generally kept hearing people talk about books they published. Except almost everyone had paid a publisher to publish or had their book on Amazon. This wasn’t exactly what I expected… I thought I would meet representatives from HarperCollins, Penguin, Random House or Simon & Schuster, and at least meet agents that had connections with those companies. That wasn’t the case. But there were a couple of good presentations. One of the presenters talked about the reason you don’t give up and encouraged everyone to send out thousands of queries. There was a critique group with Cheri Roman. With ten other writers in my group, I received positive critiques on chapter 1 of my book.  Oh, and the folks who did the workshop on query letters were helpful. I learned mine needed work but now that it’s tweaked, I might use it.
So am I ready now? Can I send my book out? Nope, I have more edits to do. I thought my story was done! I learned I have to search Query Tracker to send out thousands of queries! And most of the agents said memoir is an oversaturated market and they weren’t interested in hearing from me. Whoa,  when I heard that, I was totally crestfallen!  Nope, I didn’t expect that. I had to keep reminding myself I finished the book. I told myself that’s a big deal. I never planned to self-publish on Amazon. I wanted to go to this conference and find an agent or have someone interested in my pitch, but I came home a bit deflated. Yet, that inner urge to keep pushing ahead, to capture the right words to describe the world around me is still there, telling me not to quit. I want to tell the world about my journey with Jessica and my family.  But who would want to read about my story? Would anyone besides my friends?
I started reading Educated, by Tara Westover. Her memoir is on the best-seller list. If the memoir market is saturated, how did she get her story published? Isn’t my story just as unique? After I received my latest rejection letter, I complained to people in my writing group. One of them, the one who everyone says is “the best writer in our group,” told me she has over 2000 rejections and 67 acceptances. It made me feel better in a strange way. I applaud her success. I want both of us to succeed though.  I want validation that my words, my story has merit.
So I will keep submitting. Starting to grow a thicker skin already. If you are reading this, please hit “follow”!

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It’s the same but different.

Even though Jessica lives in the group home, she comes home on the weekends, usually for two nights, sometimes one. Last Saturday, after I picked her up at the group home, she got in the car and as usual, asked, “Can we go shopping?”

But something about the way she looked gave me a bad feeling. She looked tired and worn out. However, we had planned something for my birthday and she refused to take no for an answer.

“I fine,” she kept saying.  It was too much trouble to argue with her. Even when she wakes up at 2 in the morning and won’t go back to sleep, it’s impossible to reason with her. What does time mean to her anyway?  So the day went on – we went shopping, bought the needed ingredients,  mixed up the cake, baked it, frosted it.

At the end of the day, Jessica was dragging, so I helped her get into bed. That night was rough. She didn’t sleep well. Usually asleep by eight o’clock, she kept getting up, coughing and complaining about her ears. In the morning, she said she was fine. Again, no use in arguing with her. So we did more shopping. Jessica was excited about the birthday dinner, Mina just wanted to stick her fingers in the cake and taste the icing.

By 5 pm, I was ready for Jessica to go back to the group home. My thoughts were ‘let them deal with her’, but it was too early to take her back. We still needed to do dinner and candles. At dinner, she didn’t want to eat anything. She wouldn’t say what was wrong. When we finally lit the candles and sang happy birthday, she decided she DID want cake. A few minutes later, she started to gag.

Here we go again, I thought – she’s about to throw up all over the table. Springing into action, I shoved Jessica into the bathroom before she had a chance to begin vomiting in Sarah’s kitchen. I was proud that at least we got to the sink in time. Okay, the ideal place would have been the toilet, but it was close enough.

The crazy part is how happy I was that she threw up in the sink. After crying, throwing up, wailing, throwing up again, it finally stopped. No one saw her vomit, but I know they heard the wretching. I heard Mina ask, “Why’s Jessica throwing up?”

Jessica’s vomiting lasted a minute or two. Churned up food poured out of her mouth like rivers of brown lava. Again, I thought about how grateful I was- she didn’t have a chance to throw up all over Sarah’s kitchen table. Thank goodness poor Mina didn’t see anything. She didn’t have to witness the same things her mom and her aunt Alia used to witness, years ago, way back when this happened on a regular basis. Most of the time, it started when Jessica choked on food, unchewed green beans or even a piece of lettuce. The choking, followed by gagging, then vomit.

It was always so sudden, but the gagging noise was the signal to everyone – GET UP and  GO!

I can still hear the sound of the chairs clattering to the floor when she’d start heaving. Alia and Sarah ran from the table as though the house had caught on fire.  Paralyzed, Jessica wouldn’t budge and then the vomit would sprew all over the plates and surface of the table.  Poor Jessica – I’d be screaming at her to move, as the frightening feeling of choking and not being able to breathe made her more immobile. I never knew whether to try to force her up and could never get her to vomit into a bag. No, the mess would erupt everywhere, cascading down the front of her shirt, over the table and on the plates. I would hold her hair back as she alternately cried, choked, vomited and tried to swat my hand away. The clean-up was the worst part.

She rarely does it anymore. That is, until last weekend.

Mina is still asking about this episode. She wants to know why Jessica threw up.”She didn’t feel good,” I told her. She keeps asking anyway. So when Jessica threw up last weekend, it reminded me of all my past challenges. That one in particular.

And, of course, I wrote about it in my book.

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A baby and a book

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My grandson Ari
So I am doing one of my favorite things in the world besides writing…. holding one of the grandkids! And in less than two weeks, I am headed to the Florida Writer Conference in Orlando. I am excited to be doing this. I have my friend Mimi to thank for convincing me to go. Mimi is a fellow writer who has written a memoir about recovering from a stroke when she was in her thirties. She’s brave and doesn’t let a silly thing like a wheelchair get in her way. She goes around and around and never quits, just like the Energizer Bunny. Yes, that’s what she’s like. So last year, she tried to convince me to go to this conference. We had nearly completed our memoirs. I didn’t go. After she told me she had an agent interested in her memoir, thought I should pursue it too. So this year, I decided I’m going. My decision was so last minute, it makes me laugh to think about it. I was in Mt. Rainier in Washington, with sporadic phone reception, and no cell service.  Mimi kept sending emails and once in a while it would come through.  Finally, when I landed in Miami, I saw every one of her emails -telling me the early bird special price was going up – urging me to hurry! At the 11th hour… maybe it was closer to the 12th = time was almost up. She had texted me over and over. “Are you going?” “yes”, I texted back. “well hurry up and register!” “I can’t get service on my network!”  Finally, there I was in the back of an Uber, and I had bars! I  registered for the conference on my phone. Now if you know anything about me, you know I’m not technologically savvy, but I did it! In the nick of time. Woo hoo!
I even texted another friend to see if she was interested in driving to Orlando and by some lucky break, by 12 am we were both registered for this conference. I am looking forward to finding an agent to represent me. I plan to take excerpts of my book. Do I take a query letter? I’m not sure what will happen, but the possibilities seem endless. Maybe Mimi will be lucky too.
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Broken Brain

When the kids were little, we’d get questions about what was wrong with Jessica from Sarah and Alia’s friends. Maybe a lot of them didn’t have interactions with a mentally handicapped kid. At first glance, Jessica didn’t appear to have anything wrong with her. In fact,she was really cute. So were the other two. But whenever Jessica spoke, it was clear something was different.
So “what’s wrong with Jessica?” was a question my other two had to explain. It probably made them uneasy having to offer explanations and must have made them feel terribly uncomfortable. I would have felt that way. Maybe I should have taught them some snappy comeback, but I was also so unsure. The blind psychologist I was seeing told me they should answer “Jessica has a broken brain.” Easy explantation? It sounded that way. I have no idea how that may have sounded, but the blind doctor – whose name I won’t say  – gave this advice. She said I should treat Jessica the same way I treated the other two girls – have her participate in the same things -not to restrict her.
I didn’t do it that way. Not because I didn’t want to. It was because it wasn’t what Jessica wanted. Jessica didn’t ask to go with Sarah to her friend’s house or ask to join Brownies or go to Tae Kwon Do. If she wanted it, I would have taken her. I would have insisted on mainstreaming but she appeared to want to be with individuals who were just like her. I got in an argument with a professor at UM about mainstreaming. She had a disabled daughter and was a big proponent of mainstreaming. But each child is a special case, and wants different things – don’t they? I always honored that.
So it ‘s hard knowing if what I did or how I parented was the right way to do it. I wasn’t the one who grew up with a handicapped sister. And as for Sarah, Jessica was her twin. In my book, I have a chapter or two where I explore this and how it felt. We had to manage, we had to continue living our lives an doing the ususal stuff. But I am left a bit wistful, wishing it could’ve been easier for the other two.

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