Writer In Motion Forum

Yay! We made it to the final week of Writer In Motion, and I didn't give up. Between virtual school starting in Georgia, me giving up on my current novel work in progress and starting a new story, and several CP responsibilities, I had several moments where I thought I might not be able to give this project my attention.

But here we are at the end, two rounds of CP edits, and I have a finished story. I really like it, love the questions it raises, and enjoy how it evolved over the two rounds of edits. More importantly, this project hit me at the perfect time to revive my creative mind, to remind me that I can, in fact, create a story out of nothing, and to reset my expectations about how to write a story.

Typically, I'm a plotter. I write my books by outlining the hell out of them, writing a little, reworking my outline, writing more, and so forth until I have a completed story. This project, though, I approached in a completely different way. Diving into it without a plan, with only an idea, a possible character, and a sense of feeling, I am surprised but proud to have created something with a complex world, strong characters, and a twist that challenges all that I set before.

I am so thankful to my CPs, Thuy and Ari in the first round, and Dan and Jeffrey in the second round. Though I didn't take all of their suggestions (sometimes the changes were too big for the time I had available, other times I disagreed with the change), I am grateful for the ways they made this story stronger. They challenged me to approach Maren and Giana in new ways, helped me expand their story and make things clearer, and they supported me in this brilliant challenge.

Thanks for including me in this great experiment and experience. I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.

~Sara

TO REMEMBER HER BY

Maren wiped the sweat from her brow, leaving a smear of wet earth in its place. The soil had been soft beneath the spread of ferns and wildflowers, making it easy to dig a hole big enough for Giana. The work was easy, methodical, almost meditative. The hard part had been replacing the plants, arranging them over the telltale grave, wrestling the large root systems of the ferns back in place over Giana's body. Now they were both covered in mud.

Exactly as Giana wanted it.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Returned to the earth from whence we all  came.

"There is a natural order to these things," she had said, "even if the world refuses to see it."

A glow settled in beyond the mountains, though the sun had set some time ago. Maren imagined she could climb over the edge of the world, crest over the top of the peaks, follow the sunset just a few minutes more. Cling to the last vestiges of day before night settled in.

She took a deep breath. She had time for that, at last.

Work still lay ahead, but this was a moment for rest. Giana had scheduled it that way. Giana had always had a plan. From the moment the law passed, she knew what had to happen.

"Over my dead body!" Giana had declared over the remains of breakfast that morning.

Maren chuckled as she picked up the syrup-sticky plates. "Sweetie, that's the whole point."

"I won't participate. My body won't be used as some undead baby-maker, even if I am done with it. I don't care how desperate some rich lady is to have her designer baby. I don't want to be a part of it."

"Technically, it won't be your body," Maren said, pouring a fresh cup of Brazilian coffee into her wife's favorite mug. "Emily at the clinic says they'll just clone you, and use that. Your body will be cremated or buried or whatever you want."

"Buried," Giana insisted, accepting the mug. "I want my body to go back to the earth where it belongs." She sipped at her coffee, still steaming. "Why can't they just use artificial wombs or some such? Why zombie moms?"

Maren rolled her eyes. "They're not zombie moms. The bodies never become conscious. Think of it as organ donation. You aren't using your DNA anymore, and Dr. Levinson says the clones work when artificial wombs just don't. Plus, it solves the egg problem. We need viable eggs from fertile female bodies." She smiled and sat up, pushing her own coffee away. "Speaking of, our viability results should come back today. You ready to become a mom, Gi? A living one?"

Giana reached past the syrup bottle and butter dish and squeezed Maren's hand. "With you? Absolutely." She smiled. "But, that's my choice. I don't care how bad things get, no one can make that sort of decision for me. Or for my body." She stood up and took away the empty coffee mugs. "I want to be a mom, not an incubator."

She didn't get a choice.

The Emergency Fertility Project suffered from low participation, so it became mandatory. The lawsuits that followed were all rejected. The courts reasoned since the plaintiffs weren't yet dead and would lose claim to all property, including their bodies, in the event of their deaths, claims of injury were moot.

In the end, the dead have no rights.

Giana swore to fight it, but she didn't have time.

The lingering light of the sunset finally faded as Maren pushed open the heavy wooden door of their isolated mountain cabin. The light flicked on, and the heavy orange glow warmed her.

She had work to do.

She started with the beds. There was hers: soft mattress, downy blanket, firm pillows. Then there was Giana's.

Maren didn't bother washing the loam and dirt away. Seized with a need to move forward, to move on, she ripped the oxygen tubes away from the wall, the tray of sterile needles, the plastic-lined bed pads from the shelves. Sponges for her chapped lips. Straws that bent to feed her soup in bed. Gauze for the incision along her right breast that didn't take enough of the cancer.

The wound that never healed because there wasn't time.

All onto the mechanized bed. Sheets, flung over the top. Then with a huff, Maren got around behind the bed, unplugged it, and began pushing it out the door.

She wanted to push it all the way to the edge of the mountain. Send it flying over the edge. As if that would erase the crimes she and Giana had committed.

It was enough to get it out of the house.

Maren slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, winded and wanting nothing more than to curl up and take a nap on her own bed. But she had more to do.

She packed her bag. The morphine, left over and unused. The hormones. Clothes. She'd leave in the morning.

Five months, now, since she'd begged the clinic for one favor. Seven months since Giana had received her final prognosis after her mastectomy failed, and the chemo left her barren. That was when they had made their plan.

"I still want to be a mom."

"I thought it only counted if you were there to see it."

"No. It only counts if it's my choice."

Maren gasped as she felt a kick. All the activity must have woken her. She reached down and rubbed her tummy.

"It's okay, Gigi. I won't let them take you."

All the previous rounds of IVF had failed. This one, though? Maren had had doubts, but Giana had always known it would work. It had to.

Giana had joined the mandatory fertility program, after all. This, though, was all on her own terms.

And Maren would see the plan through. Together, they would end this horror.

As mother and daughter.



 

Forgot to link to my blog, though I guess it's moot what with the text posted above. Here it is anyway. I also do book reviews and cocktail pairings there, so there's fun stuff as well.

https://www.saratbond.com/blog

Straight up: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

THE GOOD: I really love my characters and concept. I love my opening, the tone it conveys, the wistful melancholy and resignation, and it gives me a lot to build on.

THE BAD: this draft was really about my discovery process. I used dialogue to unveil the characters, the big mystery, and the potential story. But this is no where near what I want it to look like in the end. This was ABSOLUTELY a discovery draft. There's just so much telling, so much exposition, so much explaining. I want to bury a lot of these things in the subtext of Maren preparing to take on the world. I can still keep a flashback to show her relationship and disagreement with Giana, but I want more of the action in the present.

THE UGLY: The Promising: That means my revisions are going to be so much fun as I bring the story more in line with what it could be. I want to improve the tone throughout. I want to build in a progression from the weary resignation to a determination that things will change. The dialogue scene will almost entirely be rewritten and slashed to give Maren more of the story. The reveal at the end gives me something to build to, and as dark as it is, I'm really excited about it. This will absolutely be a fun revision, as I will probably be doing some major rewrites. Now that I know the underlying story, I can actually write something worth reading.

Now comes the fun part!

Anyway, here it is.



Maren wiped the sweat from her brow, leaving a smear of wet earth in its place. The ground had been soft beneath the spread of ferns and wildflowers, making it easy to dig a hole big enough for Giana. The work was easy, methodical, almost meditative. The hard part had been in replacing the moved plants, arranging them so they covered the telltale grave. Wrestling the large roots of the ferns back in place over Giana's body had left them both covered in mud and dirt.

Exactly as it should have been.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Returned to the earth from whence we came.

There was a natural order to these things, even if the world refused to see it.

There was light still in the sky, though the sun had set some time ago. It was like that up here. Light lingered a longer the higher up, you were. Maybe it was the thin air, or the fewer obstacles between the horizon and the upper edges of the Appalachian.

Maren took a deep breath. There was time for that now.

This, she considered, was the between time. The moments between the pain and the illness and the tears that came before, and the work that still lay ahead.

She snorted. She was getting maudlin already. Giana would have mocked her for that. After all, Giana had always known what had to happen. From the moment the decrees came down, that the country's fertility had been solved with the most humane solution, she had been adamant.

"Over my dead body," Giana declared over the remains of breakfast that morning.

Maren had chuckled as she picked up the syrup sticky plates. "Yeah, sweetie, that's the whole point."

"It's grotesque. Unnatural!" Giana stomped to the coffee maker to refill her mug and managed to slosh the bitter drink all over the tile.

"Watch it," Maren said, grabbing a towel, cleaning up after her wife. "Okay, I admit, it's a rather unconventional solution. But it's got promise. Artificial wombs have never succeeded, and there aren't enough willing to take on children of our own. Besides, what does it matter? You won't care one way or the other. You'll be dead."

"It doesn't matter? How can you even think that? How would our kids feel to know that some form of their moms were still out there. Treated as incubators. Long after we're dead to them."

"Gigi, let the IVF take at least once before you start worrying about our kids, hm?"

"But we will have them. We've both tested viable. There's no reason we won't have kids of our own one day. And that makes us prime candidates for this program! I don't want my children's mothers' bodies being propped up as some artificial baby makers."

"But it wouldn't be you. They're not animating corpses, here. It would be a clone using your DNA."

"It would still be me."

"No, sweetie. A clone might have your DNA, but it would be a completely separate entity. Besides, these clones would never achieve sentience. They wouldn't be conscious. They'd be no more than cloned body parts, livers, lungs, hearts. They're just more effective wombs."

Giana shook her head, sinking back into her chair and angrily consulting her tablet again. "That's what they tell us. I'm telling you, it's always worse than they tell us. I won't be a part of it."

Maren leaned over the back of her wife, pulling her into a hug. "No one is going to make you, baby. The program is voluntary. Like organ donation. Which is what it is."

Time proved Giana right, though. There weren't enough fertile women willing to commit to the program; only a handful agreed to donate their bodies to the cloning project. Even the heavy propaganda [have fun with this!] wasn't enough to sway more than a few hundred women to give up their DNA.

So it had become mandatory. Any proven fertile female gave up claim to her DNA in the event of her death, that the reproduction of the American people might continue. The lawsuits all failed on the grounds of standing, because the women weren't yet dead and couldn?' claim legitimate injury until that happened.

In the end, the dead have no rights.

Giana swore she would fight it until her dying breath. She didn't know it would be so soon, though.

The lingering light of the sunset faded as Maren pushed open the heavy wooden door of their concrete cabin. The light flicked on, and the heavy orange glow warmed her. There was still time to make things right.

She started with the beds. There was hers, soft mattress, downy blanket, multiple pillows of various firmness. Then there was Giana's.

Maren didn't bother washing the loam and dirt from her hands. Seized with a need to move forward, she ripped the oxygen tubes away from the wall, the tray of individually packaged sterile needles, the plastic-lined bed pads from the shelves. Sponges for her chapped lips. Straws that bent to feed her soup without lifting her from the bed. Gauze for the incision along her right breast that didn't take enough of the cancer. The wound that never healed. All onto the mechanized bed. Sheets, flung over the top. Then with a huff, Maren got around behind the bed, unplugged it, and began pushing it out the door.

She wanted to push it all the way to the edge of the mountain. Send it flying over the edge. As if that would erase what she and Giana had done here.

It was enough to get it out of the house.

Maren slammed the door back behind her, and leaned against it, winded and wanting nothing more than to curl up and take a nap on her own bed. But she still had more to do.

She packed her bag. The morphine, left over and unused. The hormones. Clothes. She'd leave in the morning.

She felt a kick then. All the activity must have waken her up.

"It's okay, Gigi. I won't let them take you."

Four months, now, since she'd gone back to work at the lab and her last maternity appointment. Seven months after Giana's had been given her final prognosis, and they had made their plan. They'd worked against the clock, and there had been no guarantees. Maren's egg, Giana's DNA.

All the previous rounds of IVF had failed. This one, though? Maren had had doubts, but Giana had always known it would work. Simply because it had to.

Now, they were part of the fertility program after all. This, though, was on their terms, the way reproduction should be. Giana would help her see this through to the end. They could still end the fertility program together. Not as unconscious wombs against their will, but as mother and daughter, and on their own terms.

All right. I think I figured out the background mystery, and why my character is hiding the death of a loved one. Now I just need to find time to write and figure out EVERYTHING else, including how to write a story that is a third as long as most of my chapters. That may be the challenge for my revisions.

I've used tarot cards before to help me when I'm stuck, and they can be a great way to dive down deep into your creative instincts. Can you document more of how you use them as you continue developing your story?

Dan! So glad to see you here. We've not interacted, I don't think, but we have several mutuals (Stephanie Sauvinet and Sarah Sover are some of my CPs, along with KJ Harrowick above, and I met Mike Mammay at AtomaCon last year.)

I love that you stalked others to get inspiration. I did that after I posted my initial impressions, and it helped drive me to some deeper reflections. I also get the feeling of isolation, of someone that doesn't want visitors.

I can't wait to see what different directions everyone takes it.

Kat, it is ABSOLUTELY your fault that I'm doing this at all, and you know it. Don't even play.

And somehow, now that I've deleted Twitter and Facebook, I'm actually finding time to do the majority of the things on my To Do list. Funny how that works. I'm about to go add some thoughts on this post to my blog on my site, but I'll come back and post them up here, too. (Don't really care about driving traffic to the blog, and I'd rather engage people here for this. )

Love and tacos, my dragons! 

Honestly, I don't know how much I'll be able to keep up with this month's Writer In Motion. I have two kids, one of whom is starting digital learning at home this month, the other who thinks herself a full adult at 2 years old. I am struggling to find any moments within the day to devote to the two books I'm writing, on top of all of my day-to-day responsibilities.

And yet.

Some of my greatest friends are involved in this project each iteration: from editors to writers to promoters. I know so many people who have found inspiration in the prompts and the process of this experiment. I think it's beyond time I dove into the deep waters of WIM and find my own inspiration.

I obviously haven't written anything complete yet. We've only just been given the prompt, and I still have other projects in the works.

But I have thoughts. Here they are: https://www.saratbond.com/post/writers-in-motion-week-0 I hope they turn into something more substantial than the impressions I've come up with just tonight.