Writing update / Seeking a muse or two

It has been an incredibly long time since I’ve had the opportunity to write the following words: I’ve completed revisions on a new book! 

*screeches of joy* *fanfare* *a waterfall of confetti*

Here’s a quick summary for RIVER OF SPIRITS:

Twelve-year-old Senka lives between the realm of the Living and the realm of the Dead. As ward to Charon, the Ferryman of the Underworld, Senka assists Charon in ferrying souls across the river and into their afterlife. Although Charon has mentored her, and messenger-raven and tutor Mortimer has taught Senka a bit about the realm of the Living, there’s so much about the Underworld Charon has been keeping from her. Senka knows Charon forbids her from straying too far from their home (it’s Rule number five in the Rules for Ferryers, after all), and though she doesn’t understand why, she obeys—there’s nothing she wants more than to prove she can be a model Ferryer. When a Living girl named Poppy arrives, demanding passage across in order to find the soul of her brother, Senka is literally dragged downriver, far from everything she’s ever known. But the Living were never meant to mingle with the Dead. As Senka and Poppy are swept away on an adventure through the Underworld, they encounter mischievous spirits of lore and eccentric ghosts—and not all are willing to let souls slip through their grasp, and Senka must utilize everything she has learned in order to save Poppy from a fate worse than death. While Senka and Poppy dodge angry demigods, hungry wraiths, tricksy shape-shifters, and terrifying dragon chimera, Senka gets closer and closer to learning the truth of her own past. Soon, Senka won’t just need to save Poppy’s life—she’ll also need to save her own…

Spirited Away meets Hades (video game) in this MG contemporary fantasy. Set in the Underworld, this story explores themes of grief, found family, memory, and what it means to be mortal.

Here’s an aesthetic:

All images via Unsplash

It is a monumental book, a pivotal book, a beautiful behemoth which made me delve into topics I’d previously danced away from, flat-out refusing to face before. I should frame the pages and hang them on multiple walls; dedicate a shrine to this story that siphoned a year and a half of time and made me fight battles I should have fought long ago. I should (and do) thank it for being the exact story I needed to focus on when I was finally ready to confront my own locked-up, banished-to-the-depths-of-my-soul demons. 

Side note: I was about to type “Don’t worry, there are no demons in this book!” then realized this is not entirely true. There are daimons, there are wicked spirits, there are ghosts and psychopomps and shape-shifters. There is a Ferryman and his trusty, brilliant assistant (well, almost-assistant). It’s a middle-grade novel set in the Underworld, where ghosts and daimons and shape-shifters are commonplace, after all.

Confession time, and a gentle trigger warning for discussions on death, grief, and loss. If you’d rather not read about these subjects, skip to the section with “Now for the part about muses” in big, bold letters…

This has been the most difficult book I’ve ever written. It focuses on themes of death, grief, love, memory, and hope. I promise it isn’t as bleak as it sounds. I’ve striven to make it the opposite. Yes, there is grief and pain and loss, but there is an ever-present undercurrent of hope. Of love. Of found family and new friendships and the immense relief of finding things you never knew you’d lost. It is about healing, about life. And it’s about all the pain and joy that comes with living.

Where did the concept come from? Which strike-of-lightning moment led me to write an entire book focusing on death and grief? Here’s the uncomfortable truth: it started when I realized I couldn’t keep ignoring my pain. Bad things happened, and they dredged up the realization that to run from grief doesn’t mean it isn’t constantly with us, keeping pace no matter how hard we try to escape it. Even then it took me a while to brave opening myself up to the pain again. Grief is not something I deal with well, choosing instead to push it away and pretend that it hasn’t sunk its claws into me at all (which is, of course, a lie). Who, me? Experience loss and trauma that has left me breathless and broken and made me push people away? Of course not! It can’t be that my past losses have made me believe I shouldn’t let people get too close because they might find out how scared I am to lose them and they’ll avoid me, instead. Couldn’t be true!

This has been the lie I've been telling myself for years. My grief has owned me, kept me at arm's-length from everyone around me; made me afraid of reaching out for fear of experiencing even more painful losses. So, why did I finally dig up these fears and write this book? During the height of isolation I found myself at a tipping point. It was either give into the grief and let it rule my life, allowing friendships to dissolve and myself to fall into deep despair, or face the grief that had lodged itself deep into my soul and (hopefully) ease it out gently and acknowledge its presence. Doing so meant I’d need to open up old wounds that were still pink and raw so I could finally, finally start to heal. And, of course, all while cradling the hope a reader will find healing for their own grief by reading this story.

I made my choice. I began to write. Two girls appeared on the pages—both with different motivations, different histories, and with vastly different reactions to their own losses. One, with her soot-speck freckles, and the other with her rainbow-painted shoes, went on to navigate their own adventure through the Underworld to confront their grief and find healing, together. What resulted is a story full of dread and love and hope, along with a lot of funny moments involving a cranky boat, a coffee-addicted Ferryman, his (almost) assistant, and a whole lot of birds.

Now for the part about muses:

While I’m celebrating finishing this book (truly, I am!) I’m also shifting uncomfortably in my chair, because completing a project that has taken up all my brain-space for the last year-and-a-half has left me melancholy. I mourn the loss of the big, sweeping story that’s resided in my head all these months. I’ve embraced this accomplishment and have lovingly sent the manuscript off to my agent and prep for submission to editors. Hitting ‘send’ was one of my top ten proudest moments of the last few years. I worked and cried and sweated and bled across the pages of this book. Writing it cut me deeper than I’d expected, but sticking with it led me on my own personal journey toward healing.

Through writing, I allowed myself to sink into my past griefs, finding safe and fantastical ways to share all I’ve experienced with death and loss and make them relatable to young readers. Opening up those nailed-shut doors helped me confront my deepest fears with the hopes of conquering them. And it worked. The pain of loss is still there, but it has been made softer, its presence acknowledged and given space to be. I wrote something I’m incredibly proud of, something I want to share with children so they know they are not alone in facing these scary, inevitable, and deeply relatable wounds. It is my mission to let young readers know that their own experiences are valid, that they are part of the human experience, and that they, too, will overcome. 

Now, the completion of this book has left me feeling, well, empty.

This is the part I don’t like about writing: the part where you’ve done the thing (yay!) but now you’re facing the dreaded blank page once again. I am solidly in this in-between time, this place in the unmapped realms where multiple projects are pulling at me and I’m not sure which direction to head. Do I write the short stories which have been whispering in my ear every time my gaze slips from focus? Or do I work on the solo RPG journaling game I’ve been sketching out these last several months? Or do I attempt the thing that truly scares me; the writing project in a vastly different genre which draws me out of my comfort zone entirely, shoving me into the deep darkness of “What the heck am I doing?” followed by “Can I even do this at all?”

Or, is the answer “All of them.”

People talk about this being a time to refill the creative well, to dive head-first into things that inspire new ideas to form, be it through reading books (my TBR pile is taller than I am), through watching TV shows and movies, or by visiting art galleries to seek out a muse or two who’ll agree to plant new ideas directly into my brain (yes, please! I will bake the muses a cake). 

For me, the well is not empty. The ideas that have been waiting patiently for me to finish this book are now clamoring for attention. To be clear, I’m not complaining! I’m excited. I’m exhilarated. (Okay, maybe I am nervous and scared—starting something new and wildly different is always nerve-wracking). I know I just need to get over my fears and trepidations and worries of “what if I’m not good enough.” There is no greater enemy than my own self-doubts.

Facing those fears for my last project seems to have worked. I’ve emerged stronger and braver, and my book is the battle-scar I earned through the process. Now, I’m ready to pick a new battle and start writing.