On Waking at 3 a.m.
On Tuesday morning I slid out from under the covers of our bed at 3am and softly padded down the steps to The Lauffice, slipping on my bathrobe as I went. It was even too early for Winnie our Labrador to sneak from her bed in the boys’ room to offer me her morning kisses like she usually does. I, on the other hand, had already been awake for an hour. And strangely enough I hadn’t spent that time lying in bed escalating every minor drama in our lives into full blown catastrophes like I’m prone to do in those wee hours of the morning. Instead, I was creating.
No, that doesn’t mean that I sat huddled under the covers noiselessly knitting a scarf while Shawn slumbered beside me, though I actually kind of like that image. I was simply lying snuggled in my blankets thinking about Marigold. She’s the character from my very first novel, my “first-born” you could say. I labored over her manuscript, the contractions coming and going over the span of about 2 years, till finally I pushed the sweet girl’s story out on my 40th birthday.
And in my eyes, her story was glorious. Funny and clever and mysterious and heartfelt. It was a story to love…or reject. Because after I shopped Marigold around to agents for about 9 months, all that filled her file folder on my inbox were rejection letters. So, I went back to my beta readers and looked for a few more. What wasn’t working?
The answer?
One that no writer with a completed draft ever wants to hear: the point of view was all wrong.
And while I bristled at the advice, I knew in the deepest part of my writing soul that it was right. But oh, to labor again. My heart wasn’t in it. So, for the past three years, I’ve kept her manuscript buried in my Dropbox folder.
But every day, I see her.
No, really, I actually see her. Because on a Christmas morning after I finished Marigold’s manuscript, our oldest daughter gave me a painting of Marigold as a gift. I hadn’t told her what I wanted Marigold to look like. Lucy had simply read Marigold’s description from my book and painted what she imagined. And what she imagined was the very girl I had created in my mind.
At our old house, Marigold leaned against the mirror on the dresser in our bedroom, sometimes slipping off the side and getting stuck between the dresser and the wall. Sometimes a breeze would blow through the window and she’d tumble face first off the front, and I’d find her lying in the middle of our floor. Now that we’ve moved, she has a frame of her very own, and she hangs out right above my writing desk, looking down at me with her green eyes and this cheeky grin on her face. “You’ve got this,” she’s saying.
And I think I might believe her.
Because on Tuesday morning when I awoke hours before the birds began their chirping and our children stumbled down the steps in their rumpled school clothes, I saw Marigold’s story anew and I felt the strength, finally, to write it.
It isn’t unlike these birdsongs that greet me each morning now that the nights are getting shorter and the wind is tinged with warmth. There was darkness and stillness and quiet for a time. And now the story has arrived—again—on sun-bathed wings with a new melody, and it is time to write again.
Spring is here, dear friends.
Keep writing.
Maile
