Happy Wednesday! Last week until yet another summer camp, and this time I’ll be volunteering. So I may take breather next week. Meanwhile, my older child just turned 14! Younger child turns 12 on Sunday. They just had their physicals, and both are nearly done growing. Estimated height for older child: 6’2″. Estimated for younger: 5’2″. They find this hilarious and awesome.
On to the WIPpet. Sigh…this novel is going to destroy me. I’ve been feeling conflicted about my genre and my place in it for a long time, which I don’t think is helping. It’s a long story, probably a whole separate blog post. I’ve talked to a few friends, but I’m no closer to a real solution aside from “finish what I’ve agreed to write and then move on.” Well, yes, but that doesn’t solve the problem of having to write it. This novel is exactly why I prefer writing single POV, but…genre expectations plus the precedent I’ve already set for the series. ‘Nother sigh.
Anyway…this is from the same chapter as the last snippet of Drumbeat. Jamie has woken from a nightmare about running away from his mother’s abusive boyfriend. I’ve mentioned before that Jamie grew up couch-surfing homeless and ended up on-the-street homeless at 15. This is not because he’s gay. I wanted a different narrative from the common “kicked out for being LGBT.” Not that it doesn’t happen, but it’s not the only reason, y’know?
WIPmath: 8/9/2017 = 8 + 9 + 7 = 24 sentences
It happened sometimes, the nightmares of getting away from—what number boyfriend was it again? More than five, less than ten. Jamie had lost count. He was the only one who ever hit Mama. They’d planned their escape for weeks, and even so, he’d nearly caught them. Jamie was lucky he got out with only a black eye and a few bruised ribs.
He’d looked for Mama for ages after that, but no one would tell him where she’d gone. She’d been too afraid to tell him her whole plan just in case something slipped. Months of searching for her, then searching for his father. Surviving any way he could until he got to the Lighthouse, so sick he could hardly stand and afraid it was more than just the flu. He was damn lucky it wasn’t.
Only Sage knew all of it. He was there many nights when Jamie woke, drenched in sweat from re-living the terror of that time. He knew and didn’t judge, just held Jamie until he stopped shaking. Sage wasn’t the same kind of monster. He’d never hit Jamie, no matter what the others thought he was capable of. If he’d ever beaten him, Jamie would’ve been out the door sooner. Or so he liked to think.
That kind of violence wasn’t Sage’s way. Everything he did was softer, gentler. The kind of thing that lulls a person into feeling secure. Even when he touched Jamie in ways that made him uncomfortable, it was always that same tenderness, almost a vulnerability. All fake. Jamie had nightmares about that too.
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That’s the scariest kind of violence.
Sighs aside, there really is no hint in the writing of telling this story being a struggle. *waves pompoms*
The funny thing is, I could easily write this if I weren’t locked into both romance and dual POV. The reason I wrote Anthem in dual POV was that I didn’t feel like I could exclusively write it in Andre’s POV, and I also thought writing it only in Trevor’s was a bad idea. I wish now I’d included Marlie’s, but oh well. I didn’t have the same problem with Nightsong, which hit a rough patch but was easily fixed by figuring out where the story was going. I loved writing in both POVs. This time…well. I would change it, except this is part of a series, and I have an agreement to finish it. I cannot wait to write something else, but my feelings on the matter are probably a whole series of blog posts.
Such abuse is the most troubling and deeply affecting of all, IMO. Especially when you’ve faced the other kind… there was something tangible to run from there, but what Jamie has faced… it’s so very confusing.
I’m with Debbie McGowen… there’s no hint whatsoever in the writing to indicate you’re struggling, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t. And I think single POV is better too. It flows better also, IMO.
Writing in Jamie’s POV isn’t a struggle for me at all. It’s switching that’s an issue. I think for me it’s the feeling of not being able to get in someone’s head and stay there until they’ve told me their entire story. Having to listen to two at once and weave them together is hard. I don’t plan to do it again after this series. I had a single-POV story out about a year and a half ago which had a ton of “we should’ve been able to see the other side” types of reviews. To me, that defeats the purpose. The whole point is that often, in single POV, the narrator is intentionally unreliable. I don’t have a preference when reading, as long as the story is good and the characters have good development. But when writing, I like having only one.
Oh, Jamie. This just makes me want to cry(you always seem to know how to hit me right in the emotions).
Aw. Yeah, Jamie’s had it pretty hard.
Seems like it is a complicated relationship between Jamie and Sage. Sage is there when Jamie needs him the most, which is the hardest part of all.
I like that we learn more about Jamie’s past in this snippet. I agree with the others I can’t tell at all that you are struggling with this novel when I read your writing.
I do know what you mean about dual POVs, since my WIP is also a dual POV novel. It is difficult to keep track of both characters’ frames of mind. Sometimes I also wonder if my novel would be better told through a single POV :’)
That’s what I wanted to show, that Jamie has conflicted feelings about the relationship. He knows it wasn’t good for him, but he also knows it wasn’t all terrible, all the time.
I sometimes think I let my inner critic have too much power. Writing this feels difficult to me, so I end up believing that it’s not ever going to be good enough. With some polish, though, I think it’ll work out.
Ayeesh, parts of that last paragraph made me shudder. Such a tricky dynamic, and even when one recognises it, it’s not always easy to know exactly what to do, if anything can be done. I think you conveyed that really well.
Thanks! Yes, it’s for sure very complicated for Jamie.