Back in 2014, I started writing a novella of sorts which I published in increments to my blog at the time. The idea was to explore the transformation of a college kid as he slowly let go of his own interests and became more selfless. Fast forward eleven (!) years later and the full novel I turned that original story into comes out May 16th.
This is a weird one for me because on one hand this has been the one story I’ve wanted to put into the world the most, but I’m still not sure whether I’ve completely gotten across what I was going for. I’ve hammered out a lot of the rough edges and revised the main characters many times over. At the same time, one thing I’ve realized in writing this is that the more I go for pure sincerity, the easier it is to completely whiff.
Stories that are intentionally silly or abstracted from reality (like sci-fi and fantasy) work well even with elements that don’t match perfectly with reality because they’re SUPPOSED to be that way. With a book like this, where I try to strike as close to the core of life as possible, I either have to nail it perfectly or it will come off as angsty or cheesy, and it can't rely on action to be engaging. The dream throughout this process was for this project to pack a punch similar to Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. Whether I got even close to that mark I have no idea, but it’s clear to me that this has reached the measure of its creation, at least as far as I can take it with my current skills. Who knows? Maybe in 10 years I’ll write another version.
One thing that is substantially better in this version is my depiction of mental health challenges, which I’ve taken from my experience as a therapist. It’s not the core of what I hope this book to be, but maybe this makes it easier for people to engage with mental health.
Regardless, if you made it this far, I hope you enjoy The Miracle Girl and that a spark of what I was going for reaches you through whatever flaws it may still have. I appreciate your support, as always.
It's available for pre-order here.
