December 18, 2020

One of my favorite aspects of the writing community is the transparency it gives to writers and their writing processes. Writing is a deeply emotional, extremely challenging, and oftentimes very lonely activity. Participating in the writing community opens up opportunities for us as writers to share with each other our struggles and share with our readers our processes. It has been a tremendous blessing to me, and I want to pass that on to writers and readers alike with behind the scenes looks at my own writing.

All of my published work and works-in-progress have a story behind their creation. For my first behind the scenes, though, I decided to pick one of my publications with F(r)iction’s Dually Noted. Years ago, Dually Noted awarded me my first fiction publication and has been a staple in my life ever since.

All my Dually Noted works have had some sort impact on myself as a writer and a person, but one of my all-time favorite stories I have published with them is “Her Solemn Duty.”

“Her Solemn Duty” responded to the prompt ‘when the sea became sky.’ The artwork, done by Hailey Renee, is a beautiful image of a child looking out her window into a night sky filled with whales. It is magically innocent and spoke to me of fairy tales and connections made in our childhood that transcend time and circumstances.

And I completely ignored all of those feelings for the first two weeks of the contest.

There is a notion in literature that, in order to be profound, stories must be tragic. The happily ever after has gone to make way for grittier tragedies. Don’t get me wrong; I love gritty tragedies. I’ve written quite a few—including my first two submissions to this contest.

My first submission was about a woman’s suicide (“To Fly in Still Night”), and my second about a broken family on Christmas (“Snow Globes”). I really liked them. I was able to explore some interesting and relevant notions in each, and I felt connected to the stories emotionally. I feel quite comfortable saying they were really good stories…just not for this contest and, honestly, not for me.

Writing isn’t about being controlled by the whims of an all-powerful muse. It is about choice. Choosing what needs to be told, how it needs to be told, and by whom it needs to be told. I am proud of my first two submissions to the contest, but in hindsight I can see they were not a good fit with my own writing style and purpose. I had made the wrong choice with these stories.

I knew I had to do something different with my third submission. I went back to Hailey Renee’s artwork and focused on that first instinct I had, the one I thought was too childish, too feel-good, too happy, and I gave it my full attention.

Then a name popped into my head: Tulaine. Who is Tulaine? I began to investigate. Is she an elderly woman who lives alone and witnesses the end of the world? Is she a motherly figure that takes in a special child with powers beyond her understanding? Is she supposed to drop the ‘i’ and be a university in Louisiana?

She is a fairy godmother, and her child is now old.

“Her Solemn Duty” is definitely a feel-good, happily ever after story, and it felt really good to write it. Everyone who practices and studies the art of writing develops inspirational instincts. Finally writing this story taught me to trust those instincts. I had it right from the start, but I ignored it and spent two weeks in agony writing stories that were good but didn’t make me feel good to write them. How painful is that? Never write a story that you know in your gut you are not meant to tell. I am very thankful I learned that lesson in time to produce and publish “Her Solemn Duty.” I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Read “Her Solemn Duty” HERE and HERE

Check out more from F(r)iction Dually Noted HERE

Check out Hailey Renee’s amazing artwork HERE