Twelve Houses by Olga Soaje #BookClub #Literary #Fiction

Since You’ve Been Gone

Stay with me.

Don’t fall asleep too soon.

The angels can wait for a moment.

—Westlife, “Written in the Stars”

You promised you would never leave me. Thirty-five years ago, I looked you directly in the eye and heard, “I will never leave you,” as we stood next to the ocean. And now, like a thief in the night, you go. No last words, no promises, no tears.

As I look back at that moment, I can still feel your hand intertwined with mine, each finger between mine, like an oyster shut tight against the sea, protecting the treasure it carries inside. But the treasure was in my belly, full of love and expectations.

We walked like tourists along Pier 59, a place we came to think of as home. Wind in our faces and a carefree spirit in our hearts. Gently you stopped and pulled my hand so I would follow suit as you turned; I could see your eyes full of love and complete devotion. I felt I could stay in that moment forever. It was this feeling, this sublime happiness, that I did not want changed or challenged. That’s when I turned to you and looked into those blue eyes as I said aloud, “I don’t want this to change.”

Your face distorted into a concerned expression as you tried to reassure me. “It will be different when the baby arrives; it will be even better.”

“It’s not that. I’m excited about meeting the baby and having it with us.”

So you poked at the subject with concern on your face, as you asked, “Then what is it? What don’t you want to change?”

“Us,” I answered blithely, taking in a large whiff of air through my nose as a source of strength for what I was about to request of you. As I looked out to the sea right in front of us, I said, “I don’t want to forget this feeling. I want to always feel this love and peace between us.”

You gave me that dimply smile. “We will always have it. And when we don’t, we will have the direction in which we want to go.”

As a sea gull passed close to us, landing in the water with a tiny splash, I looked at you and finally said what had been on my mind, the deep seed of this conversation. “I don’t want to lose you.” Once again, your easy laugh, followed by an enveloping hug, while you gave me the grin I’d come to realize meant, You’re hormonal. “I’m serious. Just promise me…”

Can anything good follow the best thing that ever happened to you?

Amelia Weiss loved her husband of thirty-five years very much, but now he’s left her a widow. Without him, she is unable to work in her sculpture studio without crying. She no longer has a bridge to her estranged daughter. And she can’t seem to keep her mind in the present.

But when her daughter reaches out asking for her help and her agent threatens a lawsuit if Amelia doesn’t deliver for an upcoming exhibit, she’s forced to make a choice. Will she reengage with her life and the people in it—allowing room for things to be different than they were before? Or, will she remain stuck in the past, choosing her memories over real-life relationships?

Thrust fully into the present, Amelia stumbles into a surprising journey of self-discovery.

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Genre – Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women’s Fiction

Rating – PG-13

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Danny Wynn's Experience with a Professional Editor #WriteTip #AmWriting #Literary

When a publisher took me on to publish my first novel (in this case, a novella), they told me I would be working with an editor first.  I knew very little about book publishing, and up until that point had thought an editor was basically to make sure that all the grammar and punctuation was correct.  I had re-written the manuscript so many times that I thought even that level of editing was not necessary.   I thought I’d already caught every typo, mis-spelling, and grammar mistake, so that I had little need for an editor.  But of course the publisher insisted, and I complied.

The editor I worked with, almost entirely by email, was truly expert at what she did, and worked with me as I understand editors used to do (before the big publishing house editors became little more than barometers of public taste).  She guided me on everything from structural changes to comma uses, including very importantly making me aware of various current writing conventions followed by the publishing industry, of which I was blissfully unaware, and aware how seriously the publishing industry takes these conventions, especially for unpublished writers.  I had previously known that a published book had to be super polished, bearing no resemblance to a draft, and naively thought I had accomplished that. I was extremely wrong.  The editor drilled down in my work at a level one can never get in a workshop, or indeed in any group setting, and evaluated thousands of creative/craft-related decisions I had made in the course of writing the book, and guided me through making many of them better.

I learned much more from my editor than I had ever learned from any writing teacher or work-shop leader.  As pretty much a self-taught writer, I had long wanted detailed specific help in learning the craft, but had been unable to find.  It’s so easy to find people who will give you vague, big picture feedback of the type that isn’t a lot of work to give (they read the work and say generally what they think, like any member of the writing public does, only they do it with more expertise), and even people who do that well are hard to find.  To find someone who will really buckle down, and identify in detail what you aren’t doing right, and guide you through fixing it, is beyond hard.

I would estimate that my editor improved my book by a genuine 20%.  By contrast, I would estimate that the benefit I’ve gotten from any one class or workshop is usually around 2%, and tops out at about 5%, which is an extraordinarily successful result from a workshop.

So, I’m sitting here typing to tell you that real writing gurus are not the professors, seminar leaders, publishing house editors, literary agents, or workshop leaders.  They are the freelance editors out there who have really learned their craft and willing to work hard at it.

How far would you go to add excitement to a life you felt was boring and meaningless?

For seventy-three-year-old Jaime, the answer takes him by surprise. Accustomed to a lonely life high up in the mountains on the western coast of Mallorca, his dull routine is suddenly shattered when a man parachutes from a plane and lands nearby. The plane crashes; the man lives.

It’s a drug smuggling operation gone bad. But Stefan, the man from the sky, has escaped with eight kilos of cocaine in a gym bag. Jaime brings Stefan home and is soon entangled in Stefan’s attempts to sell the cocaine and start a new life.

As they dodge Parisian drug dealers and corrupt Mallorcan police, Jaime’s search for excitement and Stefan’s resolve to find stability lead them both down dangerous paths.

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Genre - Literary Fiction, Adventure

Rating – PG-13

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Website http://www.dannywynn.net/