To the novel I’ve not yet written,

I love you.

You are the bane of my existence and the thing I cherish above all others. You have plagued me, day and night, for decades. I’m kind of sick of it, but I just can’t let you go.

You spin such wonderful stories for me, my eyes following their twisting plots and heartfelt moments, like tracking dust motes in a sunbeam. They grow and contract, take on color and then fade, reach out across continents and oceans and then re-center on a small village and its people.
You flit from genre to genre, theme to theme, and I, your hopeless and helpless author, can only scramble after you clumsily, desperate to get a better glimpse, a more solid touch. A god chasing a nymph (though maybe in a less creepy way).

You have matured with me, risen through the ranks of middle grade to YA to New Adult to Adult. You have dragged me through research binges and uncomfortable questions and exciting discoveries, all in service to what you will become.

You have sat with me as I despaired over your existence. Wondered whether or not I would even bring you into this world. Would people like you? Would I like you? Sometimes I’m not convinced. Sometimes I am sure that my brain will never get it together, will never settle enough for me to create you.

And you want so badly to simply be! To be shared and laughed over and cried over and loved, because as much as I love you my love will never be enough. It can never be enough. My love will breathe life into you, but it will not sustain you.

So, like many things that are loved, I will eventually have to let you go. To hold on to you, tucked safely away in my mind from the claws of criticism and rejection, the banality of querying and paperwork, is a disservice to you. You don’t care about those things. And I love you too much to shackle them to you.

But not quite yet. I trust you, implicitly, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified. Loving you enough to release you is, by far, the hardest thing I have ever had to endure. Let me be selfish for a little longer, please?

All my Love,

Your author.

P.S. Please tell your sequel that they have to wait their turn. I cannot let them leave the nest if they are not even out of the egg yet.

Dear Becky,

You’re loud now.

That seems ludicrous from your position. Right now you’re small and shy and you listen to your teachers. You don’t talk back; you don’t try to think outside of your bubble. From where I’m sitting I know it’s because you’re afraid of failure, of shame in the face of our father’s angry disappointment. You’ll get over that.

But you’re loud now. You have opinions and you share them. You laugh at stupid things. Honestly sometimes it’s concerning what gets you giggly, but you’re not worried about looking foolish in public anymore. You jam out at your work desk to silly songs and rock ballads and musical numbers, and you don’t care who spots your horrible dance moves as they walk past. You dance in grocery aisles, in full view of other patrons! You laugh at yourself and don’t mind when others laugh when it’s all in good fun. You’ve embraced being silly and dorky without any concern of your pride or ego being bruised. You dress in bright colors, in clothes that make you feel good; gone is the all-black wardrobe. It’s not nearly as flattering a color as people would lead you to believe.

You’re loud now, and you’re better for it. We spent too long hiding in corners and behind our insecurities. That’s not to say some of them aren’t still hanging around and probably always will. But you’re louder than them now, you drown them out with your smile and your laugh and a confidence that, at one point, seemed truly unattainable.

Your anger is louder too, but that’s a good thing, I promise! Because it’s not just your anger that’s louder. Your happiness is too. Your joy, your curiosity, your empathy, the whole spectrum of emotions breathes deep in you now. You feel things. You let yourself feel things, even when they’re hard. It’s not perfect – nothing is – but it’s further than you thought you’d get.

It’s kind of funny when I tell people what we used to be like. “I didn’t talk,” is usually how I start my explanation, trying to paint a picture of this shy bookworm who strove for perfect grades and wouldn’t dare talk back for anything. You’ll get there, I promise, to that point where mingling with strangers doesn’t make your skin tight and your stomach clench anymore. Where you know that your voice not only can be heard but should be heard. To where standing up to even the most intimidating of authority figures is a challenge but not an outright impossibility.

You’re loud now. You take up space in people’s hearts and minds, in the world around you. It’s chaotic and frustrating and frightening, but you’re not hiding from it anymore. You’re not going back. You’re loud now and you’re going to keep the volume up.

Love,

You, Cranked Up To 11