Speaking into the Void

 I am presently still doing just this: speaking into the void. Speaking only to hear myself. All these bits and parts and fragments of social media this, that, and the other, exist presently for future purposes: for when my book happens. For when Bliss Capron more than writes, for when Bliss Capron is an actual author. 

My waking life is a literal dream come true. The culmination of the coming-true of a number of dreams that once upon a time seemed too far-fetched to even dream about. I really do have, at this moment, the life that my heart always desired: I am married to my best friend. We live in a lovely, spacious home in a perfect neighborhood. My daughters have a healthy, stable home and a stepfather they call daddy...daughters I have full custody of. And I am a housewife. A homemaker. An online teacher situated that my work is asynchronous and I have little to do yet I am paid handsomely, considering. My daughters are homeschooled via a virtual academy. We have such a vast amount of life that we are able to live together. 

We can do things like we did today: after my youngest finished her testing, we went to get lunch and watched an interesting video in the parking lot of the restaurant. We went to the library where they checked out entire series of books, voracious little readers they are. And they have plenty, plenty of time to read. We went wild in the used book section and emerged with a truckload of books to keep forever. Then we went to the animal shelter afterwards. We read books to cats. We cuddled with playful puppies. We journeyed to a neighboring town to get chicken feed. My eldest brought her purse full of change and paid for candy for herself and her sister in such a grown up, independent way. I spent the afternoon shouting scolds and "no ma'am!'s" at her for running in the sky-high platform sandals she decided to wear (a southern girl's got to learn). 

I was able to focus my energy on sending my husband encouraging texts, pictures of our day, because his work life is hard right now and this lifts him up. I was able to focus my energy on washing his linens so they'd be fresh for him tonight, washing his work clothes, packing his lunch, picking out a ton of history books for him to help inspire him in his own potential journey into writing fiction that he is considering. I was able to focus my energy on a task which, to me, is on par with the top tier importance of focusing my energy on being a mother: being a helpmate suitable for him, being his encourager, his nurturer, the one always in his corner doing all I can to make his life as comfortable and happy as I can. There is, to me, no greater calling than that of being a wife and mother. And yes, (future) friends: I can embrace this while still simultaneously being extremely non-traditional, someone who embraces conventional gender roles, marriage, a ton of (but sure as shit not all of) stuff from the Bible that suits my truth while simultaneously embracing my identity as queer, pansexual, neurodivergent, pagan as well as Christian, nudist, and non-binary. 

But I (as usual) digress. 

It's all beautiful; It couldn't be more beautiful, in fact. 

But there's just one problem: my writing career is...not what it once presented itself as having the potential to be. Not at all near what it should be, considering. 

I'm blessed to have what is absolutely the publisher of my dreams reading my full (literally right now, as it were), knowing that by the end of this month...I'll have an answer.

However, a request to read the full does not an offer make. I have to hold this reality in my mind. There is a very high likelihood that I may be told no. 

And if this is the case, yes...sure. I will self-publish. 

But even this has me seriously screaming silently inside of my head at God in all incarnations: what the actual fuck has happened? What is going on? And...why? Just, why?

I don't suffer under distorted delusions about myself at this point in my life. I am very familiar and well-versed in my weaknesses as well as my strengths. I know myself. 

I know I am a good writer. I am extremely talented. I absolutely suck at a hundred other things in my life, but writing is not one of them. I have a gift...albeit, one given I daresay as a consolation for all the ways I'm patently non-gifted, to put it mildly...all the ways in which I am and have always been predisposed to fail flat on my ass, against which I am engaged in a daily struggle to avoid succumbing. Yes, with this peculiar way that I am wired, likely by virtue of my damaged brain after the TBI...if I allow myself to go on autopilot, my natural course is one of self-destruction. But at least, I've always known.... I'm a damn good writer.

And I know this because... I was good enough in 2014 to have gotten an agent within ten queries with an earlier draft of this work that was absolute shit compared to what I have now. I was good enough to have gotten my full requested by HarperCollins Children and three imprints of PRH. That is HUGE. 

I got rejected and dropped by my agent. My manuscript wasn't ready. The concept was fire. But I needed growth. 

I have grown. I am ready. The book, the subsequent series, is ready, and I'm ready, readier than any ready I've ever been to go HAM, y'all, feelin' like Don Draper hollering, somebody, just get me (back) in a room! P-P-P-POW.

I'm grateful that I have a chance with this publisher because honestly, there is no other publisher I would want to have my series. They are where I see myself belonging more than anywhere else, a puzzle piece clicking together. I want this niche. I want this...everything...that they are. The last thing in a way that I think I would want would be to deal with big city people who are operating from a whole different universe of cultural norms and expectations than those who are a part of the native culture in which I grew up. This publisher is a niche operation centered specifically on authors from my region. The publisher is located in my region. We are going to be potentially speaking the same language across the board should this work out and my GOD what a blessing that would be. 

My last agent, not going to lie, scared the shit out of me. It is possible I scared the shit out of myself and projected it onto her. But honestly? Here's the heartbreaking thing... we worked together for, I don't know, let me count...almost four years...but there was no personal connection, no relationship. It was just business. Strictly business. It was transactional. And when my product was no longer, I don't know, marketable? Boom. Done. With a form letter, I was dropped. It was all so cold. And honestly? As I said, I am sure I was projecting all of this onto the situation. I'm sure I was probably misunderstanding. 

But then, the time came where I had this new and improved version of the original project, and the first query I wrote was to my old agent, at the top of my lungs, overjoyed, I've grown! I've made it better! Let's try again!

And it has been three months. I didn't even get a form rejection. After four years of working together...not even a form rejection. 

Ouch.

I'll just say it: I don't think I'm built to be able to handle New York. As a  matter of fact, I know I'm not. New York / Northern culture is just different than the culture I grew up in. Ironically, I married a man who is a Brooklyn transplant. Yeah, opposites attract. It happened; he's my damn anam cara and a half, sometimes things just are. And so my in-laws are from New York and oh, they are so New York and I love them, but they kind of scare the shit out of me, too. 

It's just hard because I grew up in a tiny town in Appalachia. It was so insular; that world was all there was. The furthest "out" I ever got was Roanoke...the biggest city in SWVA but still within it. Right on the verge. That's as far as I ever got. As close to the edge as I could square my toes, but I never could bring myself to go beyond.

 That is, until the man I married drug me a little further out. But still. Where I am now isn't home. Only home is home. And I don't mean to hold onto some bizarre xenophobia in this way, but it's only when I am on the verge of venturing outside of my Appalachian regional comfort zone that I realize how doing so is so patently uncomfortable that I just...kinda can't. And I don't want to. 

So what flavor of angst is it that I'm gnawing on? I'm not sure. I just know that I'm one hell of a writer who has written one hell of a book and the ones that follow just get better and better. I just know that so many snippets that I'm reading of people that were taken on by the same agents who have rejected me are just...not all that good. So I don't understand. 

The only thing I can understand is that when I am looking up agents, I feel lost in a sea of faces. Faces of people whose descriptions and wishlists are in no way remotely at all in alignment with what I have. It is so bizarrely sobering as I look at this more and more. How I am faced with this very surreal reality that... what I bring to the table doesn't matter, isn't going to make a dent in any of this because...it isn't what anyone wants. 

And even if they did... how much I know I wouldn't enjoy getting into another situation with another agent in which I might have the same experience I had with my former one? God, I know I would never want that again. And no, honest to God... I just can't see New York being the right place for me and my work, anyway. From 2014 to 2017, me and my little chip of a book were all wrapped up snug in the cotton batting of New York that was really little more than steel wool, accepting all of the itchy abrasions with desperate gratitude, lost in a perpetual moment of pause, breath suspended, waiting to exhale, for that one moment any moment from now that my life would finally begin.

And then... the discard. And worse, the comeback six years later in which I wouldn't even be given the nariest time of day by New York, because New York had simply gone some place else where me and my little Appalachian saga couldn't follow. We're a pair of muddy boots in a new world in which couture espadrilles are the mandatory norm. 

I really hope this publisher says yes. I can't count chickens before they hatch. I won't even begin to do that. But honestly, I just have this quiet knowing in my heart that if it is a no from them, then I am simply going to go out on my own. 

But it's just very frustrating... considering how far I got in 2016 with something so very inferior in comparison to what it is now...why, how, am I driven to the point where self-publishing might be my only option? 

I know I need to remember that God has a plan. He always has, and He is working things out right now in ways that I can't see, but I know I should trust because...He's never failed me yet. From all of the closed doors that should have opened that left me just as perplexed as I am right now, He has never failed to lead me to one that at once just opens right up against all odds. He's working things out for my good. I know this. I can trust this. 

But sometimes it's just hard when things that should make simple sense just don't. And I'm there right now. I know I'm worthy AF. I know I am. But yet... I'm absolutely just... confused. 

But you know what? My God, my life...my beautiful, just-what-I-always-wanted, just-right, just-in-time life that I worked and struggled my way up and into...there is that. I couldn't be more hashtag blessed. Well, maybe I could...if my husband would have caved into my begging to bring home the scraggly puppy I fell in love with today whom I would have named Agatha, who would have surely been the impetus for me getting up off my ass and walking off the 30+ pounds I've put on since my breakdown in October (haha. bull to the shit with all that right there, ngl). But... I'm sure God also knows that in addition to finding a publisher for my book, I would also like a puppy. I'm sure he's working that out too. 

And at this moment, a poem just drifted into my mind from some place I must have memorized and stored it up long ago. Yes, I believe I will allow myself to believe that this was literally Him leaning down and in a way He knew I would understand, whispering to me, just be still.