I’ve made another decision regarding Portrait of a Girl
Running. I have to admit that I have had mixed feelings about publishing this
novel and its sequel, Portrait of a Protégé. Don’t get me wrong, I love these
stories. In fact, I wrote Girl Running for my husband nearly seven years ago and it has always been my favorite.
Consequently, there is a lot of me in these two stories, much more so than in
Uncharted and Spilled Coffee, which are written in first person from a
thirty-something male point of view. I’ve thought a lot about why I choose to
deliver a story in that fashion, and I think it comes down to vulnerability. To
write in a point of view so completely opposite who I am—a fifty-three-year-old
woman—is sort of an emotional cloak, a way to protect my “identity.”
When I submitted these stories to my publisher, they turned
them down because both stories push societal boundaries. That made me all the
more squeamish about publishing them—in fact, I wasn’t sure if I would. But, in
my biased, authorly opinion, they are really good stories. I didn’t want them
to end up little better than a painting sitting in a portfolio, unseen and unappreciated
after all the hard work that when into them. But publishing them means
vulnerability—much more so than with my other novels.
So, I thought I’d try to apply a story within a story to
Girl Running, as I had with my other novels. I had a really cool idea and went
with it. I sent it out to a few readers and received mixed responses. Ultimately,
I have come to realize that with my other stories within stories, the “shell”
story was intrinsic to the overall plot and enhanced the story within. With
this attempt—the shell around Girl Running—I did not succeed. The shell only
dilutes Girl Running and distracts my reader from the perfectly good story that
Girl Running already is as a standalone story. Indeed, I have come to realize
that the shell, which I named The Step-Up Man was actually a way for me to work
through my feelings about publishing Girl Running, a way of emotionally distancing myself from the stories, a buffer of sorts.
With the help of several
astute and supportive reader/writers, I killed my little darling. I am now brave enough to present Portrait
of a Girl Running and Portrait of a Protégé straight up, no dilution required.
And I feel really good—no, eager—to publish them once and for all.
