Meg Dowell Writes

Since when is it September? What?

I’ve finally gotten my Internet fixed (kind of broke it a few weeks ago…oops), which means I’ll be able to post much more frequently. Honestly, now that I’m well into my school routine, it’s all going to depend on how much homework I have, how tired I am when I get home—that sort of thing. I have a paper due tomorrow, which I really should be working on, but I just realized that it’s September today, and I almost always post on the first of the month.

There’s a lot going on this September. You’ve got your holidays, like Labor Day and that Jewish holiday we all love bacause of the whole no-school factor, as well as the 9/11 anniversary (which we should totally get off—not because we deserve another day off, but because it’s a really tragic day for some people, who miss school anyway because they’re paying their respects to loved ones they may have lost). For the past few years, my creative writing class has spent some time talking about it—mainly remembering where we were, who we were with, and how we felt. I’ve had to interview some people about it, and it’s a nation-wide tragedy that no one will ever forget.

I still remember everything—where I was, who I was with, etc. I was only nine years old, in the fourth grade, and I’m not too sure a lot of the reality of it made sense to me at first. I didn’t lose anyone close to me or that I knew, so it wasn’t a big emotional thing for me. But as I got older, of course, I learned a lot more—as we all have to do. It’s the one thing I have in common with my generation: remembering.

In addition to holidays, I’m starting all of my extra curriculars this month, which is a big deal at my school. There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with being president of one of the youngest existing clubs (out of the eighty-something we so happen to have). I’m also going to visit my dream college on the 28th, which I’m both excited for and nervous about. But mostly excited.

At the end of my last post, I briefly mentioned that I’d recently finished writing my novel, Reminiscence (I know: you hate cliff-hangers and are still foaming at the mouth. Am I right?). For those of you who are new to this blog (it’s been here awhile, but at least you finally found me), it’s all about relationships—not necessarily the mushy-gushy cliche romance you speed-read nowadays, but about family, trust, and what it means to love someone. It involoves reflection and…reminiscing.

 A test of love and commitment; about remembering, forgiving, and forgetting. Sean Reilly is forced to look back on the past four years of his life when his wife ends up in the hospital, both of their lives forever changed. The question is, does he want to remember? Does he want to know all the secrets Liz kept from him for so long? Is remembering worth it? Or would he rather, like her, forget?

It was extremely fun to write, and it’s been even more fun to self-edit (well….sort of). It has a total of 71 semi-short chapters, 273 pages, over 80,000 words, but they all came from my heart. I started working on it in June and finally finished about ten days ago. 50,000 of the words I wrote (maybe a little more) helped me win JulNoWriMo in July, and I continued writing until the story was “finished.” 

I felt completely devestated when I got to the final words. Finishing the novel would mean saying goodbye to all of the characters I’d bonded with over the summer. You can’t understand it fully unless you’re a writer, but creating and bonding with your characters almost makes them feel real. Not in the sense that you hold conversations with them at lunch (or maybe you do), but in the sense that they were really living in the story you wrote for them, with them. I’ve never been one to say goodbye dry-eyed. I’ve said goodbye to real people, and saying goodbye to Sean and Liz (and Luke, Beth, Emily, Eric, Ben, and Jaime) has been no different.

Call me crazy, but that’s part of being an author.

I really must be departing now, mostly because I’m never going to get this paper done if I don’t start before seven. So see y’all soon (hopefully, though I won’t really “see” you), and remember: Semtember means summer’s really over.

Love&hugs, Meg♥