Dearest Friends, Familia, and Colleagues,
I hope you are well, dear ones, and I’m sending you so much hopeful, near-spring light and love. You may have noticed that I’ve been away from all social media for the past several months—I left the oft caucophonous space mid-November and have spent the winter focusing on transformation and healing. While these pursuits are cyclical rather than endgoals, I sense I’m coming to a next spinning in the gyre in body, mind, and spirit, and I am grateful for the introspective time I’ve taken for myself, my family, and listening to my sometimes-demons, sometimes-angels. Letting them speak for themselves. And then letting them, the ones that needed to, go.
Photo credit Ala de la Torre “Irridescent Mind”
Many folks have checked in on me, and I wanted to extend my gratitude—as well as let the rest of you loves know that I’m doing well, after working with several doctors and my therapist, and I’m taking new meds that might be miraculous. Above all, I’m here! Please feel free to check in! I think of you all wondrous ones and hope to be back on social media platforms by the end of this year.
I’ve also just received my first Covid19 vaccination and have an appointment for my next, which I’m jubilous about. I’m holding us all in hopeful vigilance and prayer, still lighting my daily Virgen/Mother Mary candles, praying safety and protection over us all. For those of you dear loves who have lost beloveds to Covid19 or any of the underlying implications of the havoc wrought by 2020, I’m holding you in my heart and sending you prayers to comfort and heal your spirits—I’m so sorry for your losses. Know that brighter times are rising. We are rising, loves.
In the meantime, I’m working on revisions of my next novel, RIVER WOMAN RIVER DEMON, a psychological/supernatural thriller about the protective magick of folks of color, which Blackstone will publish in 2022. I can’t wait to share it with you!
Here’s a brief sneak peak!
Nothing comes we haven’t conjured or called, one way or another.
Not to the water. Not to the dark pool of memory.
I’ll share much more and let you know how to preorder around year’s end!
Some other wonderful news—
My daughter and I finished our YA novel, which is out with our agent now, fingers crossed!
And my first novel, TRINITY SIGHT, has won a Southwest Book Award! I am overwhelmed with gratitude, my heart buoyed, and my spirit reminded why I write and publish in the first place—to empower, support, and encourage women, girls, femmes, and all you beautiful ones who have ever been abused, misunderstood, maligned, or discouraged by the system. If my work is shining light on us, on you, Latinx, indigenous, and Black communities, on girls and women of color, and folks in the LGBTQ+ communities, singing the truths of mi familia and all those like us who have been hurt by white supremacy and patriarchy, then I am aligned with my purpose in this world, and I can take a good, deep breath. And then get back to work.
So thank you, loves, who have read and shared my words. With all my heart, thank you.
You can purchase a copy of TRINITY SIGHT here.
Spring is almost here, a time of rebirth and renewal. And for those of us with seasonal affective disorder who need the warmth of the sun on our faces—get ready. Our time is coming!
In the spirit of transforming and re-envisioning, I want to share below a few notes on revision that I gave as a talk for Writers’ Digest last month, called “Creative Destruction: Revision as Transformation.” And here’s my interview with Writers’ Digest where I discuss my second novel JUBILEE and give advice about how to move forward, writing after trauma, loss, and rejection.
You can purchase a copy of JUBILEE here.
Revision —> Re-vision —> Re-envision —>To see anew —> Transform
T.S. Eliot: “The end of our exploring will be to arrive at where we started, and to know the place for the first time.”
~
Proust: “The true voyage of discovery is not in seeking new places, but in having new eyes.”
At its most basic, a story is about someone who grapples with a problem they can’t avoid, and how they change in the process.
Plot with a third rail as Lisa Cron calls it in Story Genius – the plot is the train on the tracks but the third rail is the emotional underpinning, the character motivation, their desire driving the whole train and keeping it glued solidly to the track that will lead the reader through a satisfying book. Cron says that “your protagonist’s inner issue, her inner agenda, and the story-driven evolution of her internal belief system, is where the real story lives.”
What ends up happening in revision is often a buffing the outside rather than going deep back inside and re-envisioning it from the inside.
Photo by Doran via Flickr
Re-envision = Transform
1. Read your story/poem as a reader not a writer and mark the places your mind drifts. If it bores you, it bores the reader.
2. Get that structure in place—make sure the third rail is clear.
3. Embrace the murk. Take notes in the murk. Quantum leaps happen here.
4. Find trusted readers. Sometimes you will throw out their comments. Sometimes take them to heart. You’ll almost always have to decode their comments.
5. Not until the story (or lyric thrust within the poem) has found its heart via the third rail and it’s beating clearly do you begin the polishing. At this point, edit away!
Steps 1-4 are Creative Destruction. Embrace it. Your story, poem, or novel will thank you for it.
Thank you for letting me fill your inbox with my heart and springful hope.
And drop me a note to let me know how you’re doing, and if you need a special prayer or candle lit. I can also do more intensive spellwork/lightwork and readings if you need—just drop me a note. I love you.
Sending you all protective light,
Jenn