It’s HERE!!

Cassandra’s Journal is now available on Amazon as both a paperback and an ebook!
 
This is a book that has been five years in the making. I did take a year off in the middle of writing, however, to write Clara’s Journal: And the Story of Two Pandemics, an unexpected project but one that called to me when we were in COVID lockdowns.

It is a bittersweet moment to get to this point. This novel has been such a big part of my life over the past few years, including my time in the Outer Banks, which was devoted entirely to working on this. 

And now I have to let it go. I have to let it go out into the world where I lose control of it and leave it vulnerable to all who come across it. It is an overwhelming realization. But it is time.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the time writing on it. I am planing on writing a blog post (probably a series of posts) about the writing process that I went through with this book. I thought it might be interesting to document that.

But right now, I think I am going to get some rest. I am exhausted.  In the past two weeks I have read the book at least 7 times, pouring through it for typos, mistakes, formatting problems, etc. I even found an error last night at midnight right before the book went live. So I am sure I missed some, and I have to be ok with that. 

Thanks to you who have supported me in this journey! It means the world.

You can buy your copy HERE.

No one would willingly ask for a scar. Such defacement is considered as ugly as the word. Hard and cold, it can only be uttered with a sneer. But the scar across my belly carries none of this ugliness. I have no hard feelings about it. I am even willing to wear a two-piece bathing suit in summer, ensuring public exposure. When I shower each morning, my soapy hands do not stop to pause on the six-inch raised line. As I stand before the mirror, desperately searching for an outfit appropriate for whatever my particular mood that day, my eyes never land on it. It goes unnoticed. In fact, the only time I am reminded of it is when someone catches a glimpse of it and recoils, wondering what happened! Then I begin the story revealing the circumstances surrounding my “disfigurement.”

Today is a big day in a journey I have been on for a few years. The cover of the novel I have been working on, Cassandra’s Daughter, is finished!

When I was only a year old, my mother had electric shock therapy. It was the 1960s. She blurted this news out to me when I was assigned to read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in high school English class. The information was delivered matter-of-factly, with no detail or further explanation. And it was never brought up again. I certainly didn’t feel comfortable asking any questions.

But as my mother came near the end of her life, I thought about what that experience must have been like for her. This was also a time that I was doing a lot of writing, mostly essays, op-eds, and narrative nonfiction articles for newspapers and magazines. Between articles, I challenged myself with writing exercises. I wrote about my experience getting a filling while at the dentist, doing my best to capture the sterile environment and the horror that all my senses were going through. I detailed a ride I took on a city bus, describing the indiosyncrasies surrounding me. And I thought it might be a good exercise to try to climb into my mother’s skin and “feel” what it was like for her in a hospital room in 1963. Twenty-five pages later, I was horrified at what I imagined she had gone through.

I have never been so out of control, yet at the same time in complete control. I didn’t even know that was possible.

“Uh oh. That doesn’t feel right.”

How can I be so in tune with my car? I have owned it for seven years and am about as comfortable as you can get when I am driving it. But it is hard for me to believe just how sensitive my feel is when it comes to what is happening with my little two-door Honda Civic. And for a split second, something doesn’t feel right. My back tires suddenly don’t feel connected to the pavement of the freeway. How can I know that?

But a moment later, it is clear that I am absolutely right. I am hydroplaning. 

I was watching a Youtube video posted by Peter Boghossian. For those who don’t know him, he grabbed my attention and gained my admiration back in 2017 and 2018 when he and two colleagues, James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, exposed the fraud at the heart of academic journals, particularly in critical studies departments. The three submitted multiple “academic” articles to multiple “academic” journals (that were actually published) on ridiculous topics such as rape culture among dogs in dog parks and the need for straight men to use sex toys on themselves anally to overcome their homophobia and transphobia.

More recently, he has toured college campuses to conduct an exercise he calls Reverse Q&A. The idea is that rather than lecture and have students ask him questions, he asks students to state their opinion on a topic, which ranges from strongly agree to strongly disagree. They stand on a line that indicates their level of agreement, and he asks them questions. Then in real time and based on what they are hearing, they may move to a different place along the scale as their opinions shift.

If a book is removed from a school curriculum or library because of its content (or even because of its problematic author), those who agree with the decision laud it as righteous, progressive, or necessary to protect those who may be made uncomfortable by the book.

So if a book such as Of Mice and Men or Pride and Prejudice is removed from the curriculum for racist language or outdated stereotypes, this is praised as a victory for social justice and for eliminating offensive content and authors.

However, those who disagree with a book removal loudly blame fanatics (who ironically also push for removal to protect certain people from discomfort) and will publish clickbait articles denouncing “banned” books.