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From the first paragraph, Clarissa let it be known that while I might think I was in control of the narrative, this story was hers, not mine, to tell. So began a new chapter on a cold dark February morning in Southern Maine.

Drawing upon one of my life’s inciting moments, I began to build a world of story with no roadmap, no idea how to drive this new vehicle and aware I wasn’t always the one steering though I did have a destination in mind.

My goal each day — after Will had gone to work — was to reach one thousand words which some days meant sitting at my desk from early morning to nightfall. Other days the words rushed out and I was freed. Leaking faucet or full-on hydrant.  

When Will returned in the evening, I handed him the day’s work. He was, and still is, my first reader, and in these first writing days, the accountability I needed to press on. Having worked as a reporter for a small and mighty weekly paper, a local, I’d had to master the discipline of getting the story done without wasting space on extraneous verbiage. 

I’d learned to keep it simple. There’s nothing like a deadline to knock the precious out of you. I was fortunate, in Southern Maine and in Western Massachusetts, where I’d earlier worked as a correspondent for a county paper, to have generous and honest editors.

Join a writers group, I was told, and so, with the maximum five pages in hand, I walked into the Kennebunk Free Library and down the steps to the lower-level meeting room where I shared Clarissa’s story.

That’s not a story, the writers around the table said. Go home, they said. Keep at it. Write your novel. And so I did, sharing my work five pages a week. 

I finished the first draft and was anxious to get it away from me — my instincts were right on: my judgement not so much — I sent the manuscript out immediately. Although an agent showed some interest, she knew what I did not. A first draft does not a submittable novel make.

Overwhelmed by the enormity, the great unknown, of the world of publishing and distracted by family issues, tragic and otherwise, I packed Clarissa into a box and put her on the shelf. There she stayed for many years, moving from shelf to drawer to packing box, until she reemerged for a reincarnation.

But that’s another story…