2025 Writing Project

I’m an author of three self-published books, and I have more ideas and concepts for others. But having books for sale on Amazon is a bit different from fulfilling a life-long dream to publish a novel. Amazon publishes anything people submit, and some of those are sketchy at best. I’ve seen books that were in serious need of editing or at least proofreading. Collections of short stories and poems can be culled from all that I’ve written in the last 46 years with ease; the challenges that Vocal offers are ways to hone my writing skills and prove I can still tell a story. I taught reading and writing for 32 years, and now I get a chance to exercise my right to write.

In 2024, I entered 63 challenges on Vocal.com, and four of them won top story for the month. At this point I have 158 items published on this platform and 86 subscribers. And yet I’m still chasing the dragon’s tail after winning two contests and placing in two others in prior years. Receiving that email informing me of a win is exhilarating. Those are placeholders for the big write: a murder mystery that is intertwined with my family history handed down from generation to generation.

This story began after my mother passed away in 2018. I’ve always resorted to writing to deal with stressful things in my life, and this was a big one. I had a hard time processing the grief and needed an acceptable outlet. I took a couple of creative writing classes at our local college one year, and my mother’s death occurred the summer in between semesters. My professor noticed the darker tone that infected much of my writing compared to the spring semester. Many of my stories have death and dying featured, and I have slowly become more comfortable with that topic, almost too comfortable. Halloween and scary stories are now my preferred topic to write about. My mom’s story has led me to Ancestry.com to investigate how far I can trace my matrilineal lineage. I’ve pulled details from this family history (and some mythological beings) to create a murder mystery spanning 400 years to help me resolve some issues surrounding her death.

It’s a giant undertaking. I must cross-reference details from the distant past and weave them with the recent past and present aspects to form the backbone of my story. I have photos and documents from Newspapers.com and family scrapbooks to support the truthful chapters. At any given time, I have 20 tabs open as I search for what happened in Sicily in 1640, what types of nurses work in hospitals, what common plagues affected Italy, or popular Italian names in 1822. I ferret out details about immigration and places where immigrants landed. I get lost in the mire of facts and fiction compiled that I have a tough time seeing the end product clearly. I know how it is going to end; I just don’t know how I’m going to get there. The characters sometimes take over and lead me on a wild goose chase.

Should I intersperse the chapters based on points of view as Dean Koontz does? Should I jump back and forth in time from the past to provide background stories for the present? Or a little of both? I’m afraid of writing a beautiful story that makes sense only in my head and not by my readers. When I take what I’ve written so far and lay the pages out on a table, the pages become a blur, and I give up for the day, overwhelmed by the amount of writing in front of me. I’ve tried writing down the chapter titles which are dates and places and try to organize them that way. The myriad dates wreak havoc on the cause and effect of certain components within the greater story arc.

I joined a local writers’ guild, and I know I can get beta readers to provide me feedback. My English teacher friends have offered their services. I’m afraid of that, too. In my head I know the storyline well. I don’t want to assume that just because I’ve taught grammar and literature that I can cobble together a story of this size and nature. The chapters have to flow logically but leave enough interest for the reader to continue. A little mystery has to remain throughout to keep the reader engaged without giving away the secrets.

The details in the story are what makes this story so powerful. The reader will not easily know which are facts and which are fiction. I’m pulling plot lines from conversations I’ve heard throughout my life, and extrapolating stories from the artifacts and papers she left behind in an attempt to ascribe more depth to her life. My mother recounted many interesting stories, and I feel it’s important to make sure these stories are chronicled. It’s important that if so skilled, we must all contribute a piece of the humanities as an inheritance for our generation.

There are chapters from my yet-to-be-finished book that I have posted on Vocal.com. I’ve received feedback and commentary that lets me know I’m on the right track. With each challenge, I find a way to add another possible chapter to that novel which is still part of my “teeming brain.” In his ode “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be,” Romantic poet John Keats explains the reason he needed to write:

“When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain

…. [along with everything else in his life] then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.”

I can’t share the stories when I am beyond the grave and so my compulsion to write is strong. I can speak on her behalf now and share pieces of her life in way that dignifies her station in the world. As I referenced in a resolution piece last year, a character in the movie Coco disappears from the Land of the Dead because nobody remembers him anymore; there are no photos of him that exist, and no one in his family honors his memory. This is the concept behind the Day of the Dead celebrated in Latin cultures. He simply dissolves into nothingness. I need to leave a legacy of my family behind so others can remember. I refuse to sink into nothingness.

I’ve updated my business card to lead with Published Author, and I include the URL for my home page on Vocal.com. I want to introduce people to my writing so they can see what I’m capable of writing. I believe the contents of my brain need to be preserved, and posting them on Vocal.com makes me feel like part of a greater community that understands this need. There are great writers out there who need to be heard.

Each one of use has something to contribute to history. It may be literature, art, sculpture, music, dance, theater, athletic achievements, feats of engineering and architecture, but they all lead us in the same direction for future generations. Who were we? We were full of spirit, confusion, grief, joy, sadness, melancholy, anger, and love, all bound by our commitment to being part of the human race.