More About the Novel

Thanks to everyone who read the excerpt from my novel. You all seemed to understand why putting my writing out there filled me with panic.  It’s funny how every description and even the characters’ names sound cheesy when you start thinking about other people reading your work for the first time. Posting might not have been so intimidating if I hadn’t been blathering on for eight months (the entire time I’ve been blogging) about writing the damn thing!

I’ve thought about posting some of my fiction many times before.  My conclusion was usually no–actually, hell no.  But, it’s funny, the minute I put it out there, it seemed like no big deal at all.  Still, your comments meant a lot to me, and I know all of us bloggers say things like that all the time, but this time I mean it more than ever before.

I was so preoccupied with my own fears that it really didn’t occur to me that any of you would care to know what was going on or who Ally was or what had happened to put Haley in such a state.  When people ask me what the novel is about, I never know what to say. I usually say something quick and then change the subject.  But, this time, I’m going to answer the question.

So, let me tell you what my novel is about.  It’s a coming of age story called (for now, anyway) Careful Where You Stand. I didn’t write it to be a young adult novel, but I think it is. It takes place in Washington. It’s about a sixteen year old named Haley (pronounced HAL-ee, and not HALE-ee). Haley is very sweet, very naive, not particularly talented at anything, and not particularly passionate about anything. She lives a small life, but she’s content. Her cousin Ally is quite the opposite. (Yes, they have rhyming names, and I really should change one of them, but, this far in, that seems almost impossible. I didn’t do it on purpose!) Ally is very smart, very outgoing, and extremely intense. She’s a year older than Haley, but they have been best friends their entire lives.

The novel begins the moment Haley learns that Ally was killed in a car accident. It’s the story of Haley dealing with her cousin’s death. It turns out that this person she’d put up on a pedestal was living a life she didn’t know much about at all. Haley has to reconcile the perfect person she thought Ally was with the imperfect person she gets to know through Ally’s journals, all while grieving the death of her best friend. She’s angry in a way she’s never been before in her life. She’s dealing with something she simply doesn’t have the tools to face.

I’ll keep Ally’s secret life a secret for now, but even in her anger at Ally not just for keeping a secret from her, but for what she was doing to herself, Haley finds herself adopting some of her cousin’s bad habits. Ally’s death doesn’t just lead Haley to question who her cousin was, but who she is as well. She’s rebuilding her images of them both from scratch.

In her grief, Haley pushes away almost everyone in her life. Her friends from school fall away easily–they were never that close anyway. Others of them fight for her, but she make it impossible for them to hang around. Alone, she spirals down pretty out of control. Finally when it seems that her physical health is at risk, her parents force her to go to a doctor and then a therapist.

Getting better doesn’t happen quickly or linearly. Even when she feels well enough to get through her daily activities, it’s hard for her to imagine ever being happy again. With the combination of time passed, therapy, and a new friend, she does come out of her black hole.

About that new friend. Oh, come on! You knew there had to be a boy in here somewhere. Ryan is a little too persistent for Haley to push away, though she certainly does try. He finds her intriguing, at least in part because of her grief. He claims otherwise, but I think, at least at first, there’s a part of him that wants to rescue her. But, she doesn’t need to be rescued. She needs to find peace with Ally or learn to go on without that peace.

Of course there are other characters and side plots, and plenty of back story, but that’s the basic premise. Every time I attempt to write a short abstract, I hear a movie voice saying things like, “In a world where everything seems uncertain, one sixteen year old must learn to face . . .” and “Haley was just your average sixteen year old until her world was turned upside down when . . . .” Yeah, no thanks.

I might share more excerpts in the future, but it’s hard to find scenes that make some sense out of context, and there are only so many hugely dramatic moments like that!  Man, I love to talk about this stuff.

Movie voice: “In a world where the future of publishing is so uncertain, one 25 year old must navigate a busy schedule of working, studying, and blogging to achieve her lifetime dream of being a published author. Will she do it? Follow and find out.”