One thing I grazed over in my last post is how I changed the name of the series from The Country Music series...but not the book titles. Because as I explained, the storylines aren't the same.
In my novel, the plot revolves around a farmer's daughter and what amounts to an identity crisis. While her love interest Craig is struggling with his sexual identity, Angela Carman is struggling with her identity as a person. She starts out confident enough, knowing exactly who she is...even though she struggles to meet others expectations of her...hence the struggle.
When Angela was four, she almost choked to death on a piece of hot dog her father hadn't cut up enough and had a near-death experience. Complete with Jesus and what looked like heaven to her four-year-old mind.
That vision never left her. Not even during the years which she ran wild after the death of her older brother. Anger and despair became constant companions, and she acted out accordingly. She was too young for what she witnessed and didn't know how to get the help she needed in order to process it. I mean, there is no good age to witness someone being run over by a car.
But during the summer of her seventeenth year, she grew tired of her own behavior. In large part due to the local vet allowing her to help take care of the animals kept at the vet clinic, and the tutelage of her karate instructor who often allowed Angela to take her anger out with her on the mat. Even though she didn't feel like she really needed to, Angela wanted to make changes so she recommitted her life to Christ even though as she tells Craig - I recommitted my life to Christ. It didn’t fix everything, didn’t fix anything really. I never really felt I had strayed from Him, but I wanted to remind myself I guess. My vision from when I was four never went away. I started changing things, dressing more conservatively, not swearing, not dating bad boys. It didn’t change what a lot of people thought of me. Even my own sister thinks I’m a slut, my mom too. But as I was trying to be different, trying to make my mom happy.
Angela was never able to see her parents love for her, specifically her mother's, because she knew she wasn't their biological child. She never confronted them about it, otherwise, she would have learned it was a legal adoption and not the theft she thought it was. She craved their love and approval.
By novel's end, Angela no longer knows who she is. I'm not going to spoil it for you, aside from saying she decides to identify with the farmer who raised her, who eased her panic attacks even if he was injured in the process, who fished her out of the pond when she tried killing herself.
The romantic love story between Craig and Angela is not the only love story I'm telling. I myself will never know what it is to love a child of my own, but as a daughter myself, I know the struggle between parent and child is real. I know what it is like to wonder if I am loved and accepted for who I am, even if that person isn't what they necessarily had in mind.
I'll be honest, fear of my mother's disapproval over my writing has always been my biggest hangup and depression aside, has probably been the biggest cause of the writer's block I've struggled with between books 2 and 3. I need to go someplace dark in my novels, and I can't if I'm afraid my mom is going to scold me for using the F-bomb.
Which, shows up a few more times in The Farmer's Daughter than what it had previously. Because it's the appropriate word for the character to use at the time.
I love my Mom, but she may not want to read any of my books after today because I'm writing the story as it needs to be written. Life is not pretty. People swear, people hate, people do terrible things to each other regardless of how they feel about each other...and sometimes recovery from said terrible things isn't pretty.
I may be writing a romantic fantasy to illustrate the healing power of love, but I am by no means writing a fairy tale.
Much love to all.
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