The Right to Choose

As I continue and grow closer to finishing the revisions for "A Promise of Possibilities," I question why the story focused on some things. Gradually, I remember why.

In 2007, a stranger emailed. She'd been reading the fanfiction I was writing with a friend, a romance for Frodo, from "Lord of the Rings." She suggested I try writing a historical romance for popular publisher's new inspirational historical romance line. My first thought was that I couldn't possibly. It was one thing to write a story with established characters and setting. It was something else again to write all new material. It didn't take long for the thought to niggle in: Why not?

I gave it a try and was rejected, outright, a form letter. I'd tried not to get my hopes up, but I had and was crushed. I entered the story in a contest and received feedback from three judges. Some of the feedback was useless, i.e., criticizing words that were too old. Clearly, the judge didn't read Regency romance as I used words with which I was familiar from the numerous Regency romances I'd read. However, one judge was incredibly helpful, pointing out my bad habit of head hopping, jumping from one point of view to another without any transition. Now, I've read this in other multi-book authors, without difficulty, but I re-read my manuscript and could see how it might be a problem. So, I re-wrote the story.

At the time, I still wanted to publish with the same company, even though it had been sold to a new publishing house, so I changed the title and revised the character names, hoping no one would notice it was the same book because it wasn't. It was better. I sent the first three chapters. They asked for the full manuscript.

I kept reading books from the publisher but noticed the basic premise of their stories was changing. Instead of smart men and women struggling with life and relationships, many of the stories portrayed the women as "I can do anything" shrews and the men as eye candy but stupid. Suddenly, my story was with a publisher I no longer admired. Now what?

What if they wanted my manuscript? What would I say? Would I be willing to compromise?

I'd spent my whole life compromising to please abusers. I'd been through two rounds of counseling already. I prayed they would reject my manuscript so I wouldn't be faced with the temptation of saying yes. The next day, I received a polite email stating my manuscript didn't quite fit their company. I had too many characters - one of my favorite books was "Lord of the Rings" with nine heroes, of course, I valued a lot of characters. My story was also too political - wait, what? Maybe it was that tried to remain true to the values of the time, i.e., instead of dropping a 21th century protagonist into an early 1800s setting without benefit of time travel. Something I dislike. Women didn't have a lot of options at the time and pretending otherwise is grossly dishonest. Besides, I was addressing my abuse victim mentality; abuse victims don't have a lot of options either.

Which brings me to what my story was really all about. I embraced the opportunity to explore the right to choose, within the Regency time frame. In the 21st century, anything goes, no boundaries. It isn't healthy. I wanted the structure of learning to choose with boundaries, but I wanted to explore healthy boundaries, especially within a relationship that is closer than any other but one's relationship with God.

From time to time, I've lost sight of that goal. I'm back on track, exploring the wonder and joy and sometimes painful journey of learning to choose, to growing from abuse victim to abuse survivor to thrivor.