I've been thinking again

As of late, I've been seriously thinking about publishing. Most of my fellow writers have taken the plunge. I've written several novels, young adult and children's book and I've recently finished a new adult horror at over 100k titled Erasing Fate. I've sent fifty queries to literary agents on this story and received quite a few rejections; however, I've been given some great feedback, enough that will allow me to rewrite this piece with a showing nature rather than a telling one, and one that lends itself less to the thickness a conscious stream of writing, one I'm often guilty of because I like dragging the reader through the character's mind for often too long. Stephen Barr from Writer's House enlightened me on that one after reading a manuscript of mine about snakes and girl named Lucy. Thank you, Mr. Barr for your feedback and reading my story. I am always reevaluating my stories, my writing, my inner self.

However, I've spent so much time on Erasing Fate, I can't drag myself to the keyboard for the rewrite it deserves, or the Lucy story Mr. Barr rejected. Instead, I'm writing another story, a children's tale about growing up. I'm spending less time in the heads of the characters and more on their actions revealing them. I'm finding this is easier to write. In the process, I'm getting closer to liking what I write enough to publish.

In all of this torment of writing, stories still in my head and those that have found their way to the keyboard  - there is one story I know needs to be published, one that doesn't involve my childish dreams of being a great writer, but allows an unlikely hero to step forth. This hero would be my father. He died homeless behind a dumpster, and below is part of the memoir I wrote about growing up with him. The illustration above is one he drew to me in letters from jail.

Chapter Five

Project Brick Houses vs. Stick Houses

Hartsville, SC, 1977

            My grandmother told me Daddy was only three pounds when he was born. This could be why he thought a stick house was better than a brick one. I figured his brain must not have developed right, which explains why he started in explaining why sticks are more durable than bricks. I couldn't have been more than eight-years-old. We were still in the olí single wide trailer with the faded teal stripe down it. The living room leaned upward with bricks and broken cinder blocks, inside it caused the family to watch television at an angle. I figure my thinking revolved around TV watching rather than projects because when Daddy started talking about a new one that day I still had Scooby Doo in my head. I stood outside by the living room window staring up at him and trying not to let the sun blast my eyeballs out. It was darker inside, lazier. It was how I felt. Any how, Daddy didn't mind the brightness in his eyes and I just liked looking up at him. He was still heroic to me, and I very much believed he'd get rid of the Îhangoverí disease and be a real dad again.

"Your brother has a brick head," he says.

This is true. My brother does have a brick head, but bricks have nothing to do with his intelligence. Daddy went on with his theory, his eyes looking out yonder somewhere, into the fall morning sky. I look on with him, hoping to see what he did.     

"Sticks bend and we can lacquer them with weather resistant material and make them brick-like, plus they are easier to come by. Furthermore, we run into the problem of materials. Where are we going to get enough bricks to build a whole fort?" Daddy pops his fake teeth out and eyeballs them up in the sunlight. Gross.

            "I suppose you have a point,î I say to him. ìTrailers arenít made of bricks."

            "Right, you got to use your noggin." He points to his head. I figure Daddy to be the smartest guy ever. He scratches his beard stubble, or his thinking stubble, as he calls it.

            "Well itís early. We can have it made by the end of the day." I tell him.

He winks a cornflower blue eye at me and it twinkles. I give his hand a squeeze. He smells a little funny, so what?  He didn't like to use soap. He said it dried his skin out. 

This current manuscript is in the hands of two excellent agents who I hope and dare to think they might make me an offer of representation, but am I'm just thinking again.