Kathy Rem

I just finished revising the first quarter of the manuscript with the brilliant edits from Laura Taylor. I have to admit, I didn’t know sentences could have so many commas! I’m inclined to take a class in grammar, as I obviously don’t have a clue how to structure sentences! It is amazing how she eliminated unnecessary words and nailed the point.

I know we overwrote in many places. Our journey of writing a memoir took on so much autobiography that it was hard to determine where the parallel journey needed to stay focused. With our stories being told in the linear, we tried to write on mutual themes. A lot of it was parallel mind sets more than actual experiences or situations. So, to know what is rambling and what is pertinent story-telling takes that unbiased observer to work some magic.

My father has realized that his voice can be preserved through the edits, even though some choice of words would not necessarily naturally be uttered from him. We’ve picked through the ones that won’t work and replaced them with ones that will. This process has helped the flow of his story-telling to become more reader friendly.

I love this process. I love the red ink. I love learning how to become a better writer. Now I dive into the next segment, newly arrived, equally slashed, marked, and noted. I’m inspired again, and one more time, convinced this book will be published.

Believe in your dreams,

Kathy



When the FedEx package arrived it sat on the kitchen table pulsing from the inside out like a guilty conscious.

What was the worst that could happen? Would she hate it? Perhaps the writing would be so bad that she changed her mind and wouldn’t take the project on after all. Would it be such a gnarled ball of yarn that we’d have to just toss it out and start with another? I didn’t open it for a long time.

I know it’s a good story. I know the writing has many strengths and weaknesses. My biggest fear was that my dad would look at the edits of his stories and freak out. I’ve been writing for many years. I know the editing process from being in critique groups, classes, conferences, and workshops. I know how editing is like taking a finely detailed patchwork to the final quilting stage, to beautify the piece with defining lines and curves. We’ve rearranged the patches so many times that I felt confident in it’s readiness for completion. Although I do know that some of the patches will need to be replaced with fabric that flows easier on the eye. That objective eye is our editor.

When I turn a piece over for someone to critique or edit I know I’ve written it in my voice, from my truth, and as well as I am able. I know that once it’s out of my head and onto the paper, that story is mine. It’s like the words were filtered through the perceptions of my mind and given to another to try to comprehend. Just as in conversation, an exchange back and forth clarifies the point and fosters understanding. That is the editing process. Someone else has the task of grocking the piece, fine tuning the words into easily readable lines and curves like that of a quilt that takes you on a journey through all the color, patterns, and pieces of patchwork.

So when I did open the package I saw red ink dripping off the pages. I saw slash marks cutting entire paragraphs. Red words filled the spaces between the lines. I saw someone really taking me seriously! I was thrilled! I am thrilled! No one is patting me on the back and assuring me that it is good. I don’t want good. I want well done, magnificent, a work of art. I want a reader to be compelled to turn the pages over and over again and not want it to end. I absolutely love this process. I love working with another, learning about sentence structure, punctuation, and grammar. I’m not good at that and the editor is great at that. I love collaborating, taking suggestions, making a story flow so the reader doesn’t have to think about anything but the story.

Dad and I have been going over it today. After his initial shock of what he perceived as a bloody massacre, he settled into the notion that his voice would be preserved and his writing would actually read a little easier with a few rearranged patchwork pieces. The story remains the same and it’s preparing to receive the final quilting stitches.

I’m exhausted. I’ve worked on the manuscript for twelve hours today. I’ve been in heaven! But now it’s time to take a break and put the computer away. I’ll go cuddle up under my own quilt now and know I’ve had one of those perfect days filled with doing everything I wanted to do and loving everything I did.

Good night!

Kathy

The lazy days of summer haven’t actually arrived for me yet. I yearn for days to actually have nothing planned. I fantasize about lying in the hammock reading from my ‘to read’ pile lining the wall next to my bed. It is ridiculous! There are so many books lines up that I have begun stacking them on top of each other. I admit I’m a rather slow reader. I read at night and by the time I lay against the cozy down pillows on my bed I’m usually only good for three to five pages before my eye lids close like a heavy garage door.

We mailed away the first quarter of the manuscript a little over a month ago and now are actively waiting for it to be returned with bloody red lines sliced though it. It’s a strange place to be in. I’ve always heard about the edit feeling like you’re turning your baby over for someone else to finish raising and, so far, what little editing we have had has been painless. But, nevertheless, the editing has never been at this level of professionalism. 

I am looking forward to rewrites, tweaking, and rearranging the book. I love working with the words and the flow. It’s like painting a picture of a tree and, in the end, seeing that the south side of the trunk needs a hint of moss and the leaves get lighter towards the sky, so add that darker green near the bottom. I’m excited to see what suggestions will be offered for our final touches.

As always, I’ll keep you posted!

Kathy



Spring is my favorite time of year. My back yard is a cacophony of bird chirps, whistles, caws, gluttony, and pro creating. The trumpet vine reaches its arms across the sun bleached wooden fence hosting homes for the migrating nesters. It offers protection from the larger predator birds that live in the neighborhood. The sparrow hawk that casually stands ever vigilant on the phone wire eyes potential prey as her head tilts in a sideways glance now and again. The little birds watch continually between mouthfuls of wild bird seed. I hope I’m not creating a smorgasbord of colorful delicacies for the hawks. I love nature but don’t care for the survival part of it.

I suppose this may be like the editing process. Yes! We are going into a professional edit for the book. We gathered all our eggs and tried the query and proposal route on our own, to no avail. We have made the decision to have the hawk pluck out the weakest links. Laura Taylor, Author, Editor, and Speaker has agreed to take on our project. I’m as excited as the red breasted flicker feeding at the window right now!

Dad and I have gone through this manuscript more times than you can imagine looking for ways to fold the chapters together, cut the meandering thoughts that lead to side stories, and add those all important smells, tastes, sounds, sights, and feelings. I think I went overboard and Dad minimized. Now I’m ready to be plucked from the bird feeder and Dad force fed some adjectives. Hell, it could be the other way around for all I know.

We have a family of doves that feed on the seeds shoveled out from the frantic feedings of our lovely nuthatches, finches, and sweet pine siskins.  They swoop down every morning and evening to coo lightly in comfortable companionship while pecking morsels out from between the blades of grass. We’re so blessed to have these visitors walk about our yard emanating their special form of peace. Among all the frenzy of the smaller birds vying over the perfect spot on the bird feeder, the doves seem to send the message of faith that abundance is everywhere and actions of gluttony are just not necessary. There is always plenty for all.

That’s how words are for me. They tell a story, paint a picture, delivery a message, or express an idea. Once I have all these words committed to paper I need the doves to come in and clean up the excess and remind me that through peace, faith, diligence, and community, I can do anything.

Laura Taylor will be my sparrow hawk and ultimately will help me survive in this world of words. I’ll keep you all posted and in the mean time, don’t forget to provide a safe habitat for the birds in your own yards.

Chirps and whistles,

Kathy

I’ve been stagnant. There were just so many rejections that came and I started to believe them. The book wasn’t a ‘right fit’ for them and, by the way, ‘good luck’. I don’t want luck. I want that one person out there who’s waiting for this story to step up. This pecking through a pile of chicken scratch hoping to have the query land in one of their mouths just doesn’t seem like I’m doing it the right way.

I can sit with any one of you out there and tell you the story of my father’s and mine, tell you how we were separated for 33 years and I will hear back from you that this story must be told. Well, we wrote it, with all its gory details. Maybe it was just meant to be a catharsis for us to go through but I can’t help but think that others will find themselves in this story and will be given, at the very least, an example of how to change their own powerless reacting to the generations of imprinting before them.

I'm working on another way of telling the story in a nutshell so here is a brief synopsis in my POV. My dad is doing the same exercise on his blog and then we'll piece together a new approach for the the agents, publishers, and special interest marketing Gods!

Here's the story...

I was seven years old the last time I saw my father. I remember his drinking, the violent fights between my mother and him, and the rages towards my brother. But I loved him like a little girl loves her father, no matter what. We had an unconditional bond that lurked in the shadows of my life as I grew up to become my mother. She loved my father in that way of abused domestic partners that always think the next time will be different, perhaps even the next house, or town, or state will be even better.

My siblings and I grew up with the scars of a broken home seared in our hearts in different ways. My brother became the man of the house at ten years old. He took on the father role of disciplinarian while my mother worked swing shift hours. He helped with money from his news paper route, and he became angry, perhaps like my father, and acted out cruelly towards me in ways that convinced me that I was hated. My sister disappeared in the ashes and became more of an after thought being six years younger than me and nine younger than my brother.

Out of this dynamic I found my husband, at a very young age, and fell madly in love with the man that was the image of my father and my brother with a little of my mother sprinkled in. He fit the childhood imprinting perfectly and we began a journey of drinking and drugs, fighting, separating, returning, and not being able to break the bond of attraction and love. Two children later and violent episodes mirroring my own father and mother, our family stepping away, and our lives caught up in a vortex spinning no where but down we decided to break the pattern of our parents and theirs before them. We quit drinking, through counseling we learned better communication and I discovered much about my reactions to life and how powerless I was in controlling my behaviors. I learned how to turn those reactions around and to see life in the reality of it instead of the feelings about it. While taking this journey I was able to see the life path I took and to better understand why I needed to walk this way to become the person that I am.

Now you can take this as a text book study of what happens to a little girl when the father abandons the family or you can read it as a more esoteric story of a father and a daughter finding their way into a spiritual way a living. Or if your interest is to understand the powerlessness of alcoholism and the denial that seeps insidiously into the mind you will get a good story here also.

To sum it up, my father and I met after the thirty three years and compared our stories. We realized that both of us had echoes of our parent’s stories and both of us had made decisions to break out of the chains of those beliefs and live life with more positive philosophies. Our work was done far before we ever were reunited and therefore the reunion was a miraculous bonus to discover we had really never broken the bonds that joined us.

 I learned where my father had gone, what he had done, and heard about his spiritual awakenings both in prison and in nature. His story is tragic but redeeming and is told in alternating chapters with mine, written in chronological order, both paralleling our lives together and apart.

I do believe that this story must be told. I’ve been led to it my whole life and I can’t believe I’d be dropped on my butt by the Gods of destiny after all the stepping stones being laid out so perfectly. We will continue doing the footwork and eventually that right person will come along to help it be published.

I remain courageous,

Kathy

Someone asked me the other day how the book was coming along. I always appreciate the interest. I told him it was finished and we were trying to find an agent through the query process. I also told him the rejection letters were piling up like old news papers in a recycling bin. My husband and I crack up at the average of two SASE letters in the mail every day! Every one of them says the same thing. I think they all went to the same How to Become an Agent school and took the same How to Word a Rejection Letter class.

In the mean time my test readers have assured me that another edit is required. I know this to be true but had hoped my doubting personality was creating obstacles. But, alas, I see flaws in the manuscript also.

Originally my father and I thought that the story was so good and such an imminent topic for our day and age that a publisher would surely pick it up and assign an editor to work with us to make it the best piece of writing on this subject. I’ve lost my faith with this vision for now. My father is still holding it.

I, on the other hand, have contacted one editor that I revere and felt that if she rejected my inquiry as to her willingness to edit the book I would just add the manuscript to the rejection letters and really put them out in the recycle bin.

She answered me, read the first twenty pages, and accepted the work – for a price, and one she deserves because she’s the cream of the crop. She doesn’t accept just anyone. She says she accepts advanced level writers who attend writing conferences, are devoted writers, have a well thought out story line, and have completed the project.

I met this lady at a writer’s conference and she’s all about getting the publishers to stand up and notice you. So a couple of questions come up for me. Do I invest big money in a book I don’t even know will sell? If it wasn’t for the money, would I hand over the book to her to edit? I’ll answer the second question first. She’d have the manuscript in her hands already if there wasn’t a question of cost. The answer to the first question is the same as the second.

Besides the budget impact this chunk of change would have on my household I have a partner to consider, my beloved father, who holds his story close to his heart. He doesn’t just turn it over for anyone to pick apart and to possibly threaten a change to his voice. His voice is wonderful. He’s a story teller from the generation of the spoken word. One of my favorite memories is of him sitting on the bar stool at a diner in Hope Valley, his fishing gear still wrapped around his waist in his well stocked fanny pack. The family, gathered around various wooden tables, eating the famous homemade pie (alamode) with rapt attention towards him engaging in a fish story. It was so rich in humor and detail and mildly stretched exaggeration that all of us listened to him like an Indian chief handing down the folk lore of our ancestors. It was a surreal moment the way the sun poured through the window showing the dust floating in the air, softening the atmosphere as if a movie camera was romanticizing the scene. His stories are rich. And they’re rich in the book. But being a story teller and a writer creates a bridge that needs to be crossed and an editor is the engineer to construct that bridge for the reader.

Then there is my side of the book with my sentimentality dripping throughout the pages in more melancholy than the average reader is going to bare. I can’t edit my own stuff. I’ve tried. What part of my story needs deleting? What part of me just isn’t that interesting? Well, I just don’t know how to make that call without cutting pieces of myself off. It’s a gruesome analogy but I think it makes my point.

In the mean time Dad is putting out query letters like a paper press printing and distributing. He’s a machine right now, an amazing energy to have in my life. And the proposal continues to grow with facts and details, requiring much more research than I have been willing to pursue. With both of us working on it we’ll begin to send it out soon, hopefully in emails. I do not want to keep feeding the recycling bin!

More to come - in the mean while save a tree, plant a tree, and write on!  

Kathy

The letters keep pouring in. It’s actually quite surprising how fast a rejection is turned around. The bird feeders in our back yard are refilled just as fast as a query letter is sent back in that now dreaded SASE that mocks the efforts of several cathartic migrations of words revisited and revised.

Fall is starting to drop down and the light is beginning to escape under its veil. The birds are feasting already on the spent sun flowers. They stand like sentry over the beans and broccoli. The flickers, white crowned sparrows, and warblers feast on the seeds all day and bring their family and friends to peck at the cosmos and dahlias. Doves consume the fallen seeds on the rich soil below as I reach for words to be placed on the page in just the right expression of my waiting, my longing for the migration of the query to return to me with the appetite of my backyard birds.

I watch them twittering out there and imagine the holidays arriving with my family scattered all over the country now. The kids won’t migrate home this year for Thanksgiving. Since they’ve left it’s been a sporadic homecoming for that particular feast. They’ve branched out to experience their friend’s traditions, foods, and families. I miss their flitting about the house and yard, all of us sharing tales of where we’ve been and where we’ll be.

I wonder who will be sharing our table this year. Will the conversations lead to the book? Where is it at? Have we heard anything? These questions are starting to sound surreal to me. Did we really write a book? Are all the migrations of people that pass in and out of our lives really going to be able to read it in its published form? Are the birds looking at me through my window, pecking away at my laptop, wondering if I am eating the words on the page with as much obsession and joy as they devour their seeds?

My husband and I work hard with sweat on brow and dirt in fingernails helping to provide a home for all to come back to. The birds count on those seeds every year. They sing songs of pleasure and excitement as does our family around the table laden with the squash and beans flavored with the basil and chives. My kitchen creations leave me numb by the time I sit, and I survey the faces of those I love with a humble pride. Humble in an honored sense that I have been so blessed and pride in the incredible people this family is made up of; each and every one,  huge supporters of all my journeys.

My prayer is for the earth that sustains my family; for allowing me to turn her soil, to plant the seeds, to feed the birds so they will come back again. They know where the nourishment is planted. The earth has made me a part of this cycle and I accept the responsibility with grace and courage.

The family won’t always share the same tables every year. Some of the birds will find other gardens, other tables. The resources I gather for the dark times, the coming winter and the folding inward of my thoughts and energies are like the canned tomatoes popping on the table right now. When I open one up on a cold winter afternoon and put it on the stove to simmer into a rich spaghetti sauce I’ll remember the fall, the back yard birds and the laughter of my family always together in my heart.

And by that time maybe I’ll have more news of Parallel Journeys and its further fruition within the time and space planted for the hungry little birds in my life.

Journeying onward,

Kathy

I have to laugh at the irony going on here. I’m a person who grew up with an abandonment complex. I have seeds planted in my soul that sprout carnivorous tendrils when watered with what looks anything like a potion of rejection. It’s been my habit to react in over exaggerated defense. Behaviors ingrained in my very cells want to jump out and trash these ‘Literary’ agencies that find the manuscript unfit for their particular passions. But damn if they don’t end in positive and encouraging words that scrape me back up off the hot concrete that I imagine my body thrown down on to have a good, long tantrum.

Examples:

     “Unfortunately, we’re going to pass. We try to choose books that we feel passionate about and are aware that many fine manuscripts must be regretfully declined.”

     Scrawled across the top of our query letter, “Thanks but we’ll pass.” That was it!

     “Unfortunately, we don’t feel we are the right agency for your project and so are passing. We are a small agency and need to be passionate about every project we represent. We wish you all the best of luck in finding a home for your work.”

     “Not a good fit…”

    “…we have decided to pass. Of course this is only one response, and tastes vary widely among agents. We wish you the best of luck finding the right home for your work.”

So, I’m just a seed planted in a garden. Even though it is starting to feel like a corporate farm I’ll stay focused on the little plot of earth that is mine and make sure the seed isn’t a mutated Venus Fly Trap but perhaps a sunflower, keeping in mind the goal of sharing hundreds of seeds with the world, one kernel at a time.

Plant a garden…

Kathy

 We’ve finished the query letter and now, while I finish the proposal, Dad will send out the query to the publishing houses that don’t require a proposal right off the bat and to the agents because all the rest of the publishers have this rule that they won’t even look at you unless you arrive through an agent. We have much to learn. And, so far, we’ve already been rejected twice! I, somehow, find this encouraging. No, really. I received a letter saying they didn’t have a place for our book right now but complimenting the whole idea, encouraging us to continue submitting. That’s not a flat out rejection, right?

I know the right people are out there just waiting for us to arrive. It has been such an interesting road to travel down. It’s like a path has been set with stepping stones far before we set our first foot down on it. And the stones are solidly placed so as not to trip us up. Even when I veered off for a while the side trails always led me back to the main path. I’d find myself throwing my arms up and cursing the thought of someone as insignificant as me having the inflated ego to think I could write a memoir and that anyone would be interested in reading it.

Back in the 1980’s I saw a woman named Pam Oslie. She is a clairvoyant that reads aura’s. She said to me, “You need to write a book. It’s very strong. It’s what you must do.” I shrugged and giggled nervously and asked, “About what?” She said she didn’t know but I would one day. I knew I loved to write but I didn’t have a clue how to begin a book.

Later in the eighties I had my chart done. The lady who read the horoscope said, “You’re going to write a book.” I sat up straight while the chills ran up and down my spine. “What kind of book?” I asked. She said, “I don’t know. It’s just what you’re supposed to do.” I was paying attention to these omens but really didn’t know what it was all about.

Then I met my father in 1995. We shared life stories and by the end of the first day with him I knew that the book had to be about our reunion. But I was still a little hesitant with inexperience and under confidence. I was roller-blading with my good friend, Jennifer, and we ran into a friend of hers not long after I met my father. Jennifer introduced me as her friend with this remarkable story of meeting my father after thirty three years of absence and this woman, a complete stranger to me, put her hands on my shoulders and looked purposefully into my eyes with all the seriousness of a prophet and said, “You have to hear this. You have got to write a book.” I’m not kidding you! Talk about messages and signs and gentle nudges from the universe.

This, on top of the first two experiences, added mortar to the next stepping stone. My father said he had a friend and mentor named Muriel James and she was putting on a very small weekend workshop on publishing; would I like to go? Within a month of meeting my father we traveled to Walnut Creek and shared our story with this group of writers that insisted that we had a journey to share with the world.

With all that said, we’ll keep sending the queries out to the agents and the publishers because that seems like the next right thing to do. We’ll keep talking it up because you never know if that person your talking to may be the next stepping stone on the path. I am so excited. I can barely wait to meet who ever it is.

Hoping and dreaming,

Kathy

My father and I have finally finished the book! Yes, it took more time than I ever thought it would. The cathartic process of going back and writing my life, owning my story, and revisiting the hard times was, at times, like re-breaking a nose so I could get in touch with the real pain of it all. I think what it really has revealed is that there are so many layers of beliefs, behaviors, and sticky memories that I couldn’t help but see how I created the story of my life and how much I still react from that story. It’s a cellular thing. I thank God I’ve gathered some tools to not buy into the horror story, but replace some of the scenes with love and compassion.

So for those who don’t know my father’s and my story, here’s a little synopsis of the who, what, when, where, and why’s of our book:

Parallel Journeys is a story of a daughter, me, who found her father, Ray, after a 33 year separation. My father and I reunited, compared life stories, and realized what an incredible parallel journey we had undergone.

Despite this 33 year separation, the paths of my father and I have come together to form a bond that is definitely one of re-union. In the dual memoir, we have intertwined stories that ultimately teach the lesson of forgiveness and acceptance.

Emotionally immature, I knew no other way to deal with the pain of abandonment than through the gripping vices of drugs and alcohol. Ray, on the other hand, charged through a life of rage, alcoholism, and crime. Simultaneously we both found teachers that helped awaken us to the possibility of making healthier choices in our lives.

Through an act of kindness and another of guilt I was given the information I had wanted my whole life; to know where my father was. And now, through personal growth, I had the opportunity to tell him that I understood why his life ripped through everyone else’s.

The individual perceptions and memories of the events that we share allow you to see that what one considers reality differs from whose mind is experiencing the same situations. It reveals, through our experiences, the emotional damage created out of the separation and how essential love and forgiveness are in the healing process. This healing fosters compassion for the unfolding of our lives and the lives of those we love.

The story begins with generations of alcoholism, violence, and codependency modeling a way of life that was adopted quite unconsciously by the both of us. Ray emulated his parent’s fighting, lying, and drinking. I imprinted the same roles witnessed while I grew up. Ray left the family when I was seven years old and lived a life of crime, hard drinking, and ultimately, prison. I missed my father growing up and felt abandoned and fearful, and yet never gave up the need or the love I had for him. Feeling unloved I turned my grief into hatred towards my mother and a longing for my brother’s love that I perceived as slipping away over time. Eventually I married a man that was very similar to my father.

In alternating stories of our separate experiences we let you see the damaged psyche being played out in our behaviors. I began to relive the role of my parents with my own marriage before I eventually recognized that there was another way to break out of the patterns handed down throughout the generations, and with help, a way to learn how to make use of choice and apply it positively.

Follow Ray’s life down into the darkness of a prison cell and his recognition of the patterns repeating themselves in his life. Through tough inner work and the God given urge to be a decent human being Ray found himself and redefined the negative beliefs he had grown up with. Having unknowingly studied with some of the same esoteric teachers, each of us found sobriety, a spiritual way of life, and an appreciation for the path we both walked down.

Desperation led to recovery and recovery led Ray to study human behavior extensively and become a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, a licensed Neurolinguistic Programmer, and is an Adjunct Faculty in the California Community College System. After 27 years he has recently retired from a Social Worker and Therapist position at an adjudicated youth group home. Ray also facilitates workshops, conducts Enneagram classes, and teaches ZaZen meditation.

I have written most of my life. I’ve participated in many writing critique groups, attended myriads of workshops, retreats, and conferences on writing. I facilitate workshops focusing on intention, conscious choices, and perception.

So please look forward to the book in its published form. We’re looking for an agent, a publisher, and a final edit. It never seems to be finished but, for now, I’m working on the proposal. Who knew that that would take up so much time! I’ll keep my progress posted.