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My Own Half Past

October 20, 2017 by Victoria

When I started thinking of my second Victoria Helen Stone book, I knew I wanted to write a family mystery, a story of secrets. I just didn’t know what the secret should be. I puzzled it over for a couple of weeks, and then I had a strange dream: I dreamed that my mother wasn’t my mother.

HALF PAST-smallThe dream felt so odd because my mom is the only parent I’ve ever known. My father left before I was born and I only met him once in my whole childhood. Lots of people don’t know their fathers. Lots of people don’t even know who their fathers are, because men can leave before fertilization even completes. But giving birth isn’t exactly a blink of an eye, so birth mother is generally a fairly secure title. I knew I had a great starting point.

That dream was the start of Half Past, but it wasn’t the inspiration. The inspiration comes from my own life. You see, my childhood was a seemingly endless series of halves. Half-siblings, half-families, half-pasts, and strange half-secrets, known by many and forgotten by more.

Me and my mom
Me and my mom

I grew up in a family of four daughters. I’m the youngest. A whole houseful of women! But I’m also an only child, in terms of psychology. My sisters were five to ten years older, so I grew up differently than they did. I also had a different father as I was the only child of my mom’s second marriage.

I had a half-brother too, but he lived on his father’s farm. I did not know him at all. I had other half-siblings as well, my father’s children with his next wife. I heard about them but did not know them. They did not know about me. Another half family and another and another.

My first halloween with my sisters!
My first halloween with my sisters!

During the school year I lived in a crowded house with sisters I loved who helped raise me, but during the summer they went to live with their father, and I lived with my grandparents. We were sent to the same small town three hours from home, but we did not see each other there, not even on my birthday. We had separate families in homes about ten country miles apart. There were no other children nearby. It was just me on acres of land until the summer ended and I went back to my crowded half-family in the city. It only recently occurred to me how odd this all was.

I didn’t know my father, but I knew my paternal grandparents. I’d visit them and my grandpa would take me around town and introduce me to his friends, but when he died, I went to his funeral and no one knew who I was. I’d somehow become a secret baby despite that both my parents were from this small town of 2000 people. You could never write that in a book. It makes no sense. Who would believe it?

Me with half teeth
Me with half teeth

So the feeling of absolutely loving your family but never quite fitting in…that part of Half Past is all me. My sisters are nothing like the sisters in the book. And my mom and I get along fabulously. There’s not one goody-two-shoes in this whole damn bunch of women! We all have a ton of fun when we get together, I promise.

But I was always different from everyone I loved, if only due to outside forces. I was the only sister with no father and no brother, the only sister with a different last name, the only sister somehow born a secret bastard even though her parents were married. My siblings had uncles and aunts and cousins I’d never met. They visited them at Christmas. But my father was an only child. Half of my Christmas was quiet.

My childhood felt like half of everything except love, but the good news is that meant I could fill in the other parts myself. Perhaps that’s the wellspring of my storytelling. I know it’s why I’m interested in others’ lives. I see secrets everywhere. I want to know the complexity beneath the surface. For me, an unassuming stranger is just someone whose story I haven’t heard yet. If I never get to hear it, I can definitely make one up. But I’ve learned that whatever story I tell probably won’t be as interesting as the truth.

As always, thanks for reading!
Victoria

Try Half Past now!

Filed Under: Half Past Tagged With: Half Past, personal, writing

Heading to Higher Ground

September 21, 2017 by Victoria

I’ve talked a little about turning forty (Coming of Age) and learning to face my fears (Cutting a New Path). Most of those fears were intangible: fear of public speaking, fear of failure, fear of the unknown. But one fear was pure animal instinct: don’t put your life at risk!

I always thought I was afraid of heights. But then I met people with a genuine phobia, unable to even stand next to a high window, and I realized what I really had was a healthy respect for heights. I could function, I was just a little wary.

When I started plotting a book called Taking the Heat, I wanted my librarian hero to have an outdoorsy hobby and I chose rock climbing. I started researching rock climbing terms and practices, just as I would any activity or profession I was unfamiliar with. Then I looked up from my computer and out  my window and realized, “Hey, I live in the mountains. People travel here to go rock climbing. I could just DO IT.”

My view of Storm Mountain from the side of a cliff.
My view of Storm Mountain from the side of a cliff.

Now, I’m no athlete. (Please see my jogging story in Coming of Age.) And I have no upper body strength. My arms get tired just drying my hair sometimes. But I was high on newfound confidence and general badassery, so I planned for about a month, made an appointment with an expert guide, and started doing a few strength exercises for my upper body.

When the big day arrived, I thought my guide would take me up about twenty feet, so I could learn the process and equipment well enough to write it. I was wrong. The picture to the right was our first stop on the climb. I was resting on a two-foot ledge. The bushes you see below are actually full-grown cottonwood trees. I can’t repeat the caption that originally accompanied this picture, but be assured there was an F-bomb included.

My view looking up at my guide.
My view looking up at my guide.

At this point in the climb, I was regretting everything and vowing to never be brave again in my life. The first thirty feet were not bad. I was concentrating so hard on each foothold and just staring at the rock right in front of my face. But when we cleared the trees, it got real. This was not a rock wall in a gym. This was life and death and violently shaking muscles.

Just after this resting point, we got to an area of smooth rock (click on this pic for a larger view). My guide waited patiently, telling me I would figure out the way to work around it. He called down instructions and told me to take as much time as I needed. I think I just held on and quietly panicked for about fifteen minutes before my mind cleared enough to help me through it. I vividly remember the exact same feeling I get when I near the top of a hill on a roller coaster. Why did I do this, I don’t want to be here, I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE!

Me on the side of a mountain, trying to figure out how to get out of this situation.
Trying to get out of this situation.

At some point I decided I either had to climb up or live there forever, and I eased over to the side of this smooth face and found a few cracks I could grasp.

My guide did not explain until later that he could lower me down at any point if I froze up. But I didn’t freeze up. “You seemed like a natural,” he said. I was not a natural. But I finished the climb.

We climbed a little over one hundred feet. I finished it. I was so happy to get to the top and be done that I willingly leaned my body over the side of that cliff and let it fall, just so I could get back down to solid ground. This last pic captures my overwhelming joy to be rappelling down to safety.

Rappelling down!
Rappelling down!

And it was joy. Pure joy and relief and pride.

Once the adrenaline wore off, I felt like I’d been in a car accident. I was shaking and bruised, my legs were beat to hell by sharp rocks, but I have never been more proud of anything in my life. I did it. I really effing did it.

My first stop on the way home was to buy a bottle of vodka. My second stop was for an ice cream cone. Both were absolutely necessary.

You can see the results of my research in the rock climbing scenes in Taking the Heat. But you can also see the results of this research in Evelyn, After and Half Past. During this climb, I realized I was strong. I learned I could be resilient in the face of true fear. And that knowledge helped me take on a new writing challenge in a new genre as Victoria Helen Stone.

It was a transformative, amazing day. And no, I have never, ever climbed up the side of a mountain again.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: Evelyn After, midlife crisis, personal

Coming of Age

August 22, 2017 by Victoria

I turned forty a few years ago, and as I neared the big date, I decided it was time to face old fears by trying new things. Up until then, I’d surrounded myself with coziness and rejected discomfort. But it was time to spread my wings.

First, I tried running. I’ve never been a runner and I absolutely don’t have the body type for it, but I live in the mountains surrounded by gorgeous trails, so I decided to be brave and try it.

Here I am on the trail far too late, listening to coyotes howl. Too close!
Here I am on the trail far too late, listening to coyotes howl. Too close!

I failed miserably. I don’t know if you know this, but there’s no oxygen in the mountains. I mean, there’s probably a little bit, but it’s hard to come by. I couldn’t run more than a quarter mile and I felt awful for a whole day afterward, tired and coughing. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t do something that so many people do.

At some point, I realized my physical reactions to running were symptoms of asthma. I went to the doctor, got an inhaler, and a whole new world opened up to me. I would get out of breath, but when I slowed to a walk, I could actually recover and catch my breath! This was a brand new sensation. And after a bit of training, I became a great runner! Ok, that was a joke. I eventually got up to running three miles at a time, and I still hated each second with every fiber of my being. So I stopped. The end. I still count it as a victory, though. I tried it and I didn’t like it. But I get a gold star sticker for effort! I immediately got back to hiking. Same trails, slower pace, no wishing for death.

I also decided to face my oldest, deepest fear: public speaking. For the first time in my life, when someone asked me to be a keynote speaker, I said yes. I said yes! And you know what? The worst thing that I thought could happen…it did happen.

In the middle of my speech, I got a frog in my throat and I had to stand there, coughing in front of the whole room, my eyes watering so much I couldn’t see my notes. It was awful. I gulped water. I sniffed. I coughed directly into the microphone. It was a disaster. My voice would not come back. So after a few more fortifying gulps of water, I just forced my throat to rasp out the last few minutes of the speech. I’m not sure if anyone could even understand my words. But I finished, and then I waved and got the hell off the platform. And you know what? The next time I spoke, it was easy as pie! I’d already faced the terror of screwing up, and I wasn’t shunned or mocked or anything! People were still nice to me. They liked the parts of my speech they heard. I did it. (And next time I’m feeling a little scratchy, I will take a shot of whisky to the podium with me to clear my throat.)

As for other new things I tried, I’ll address them in upcoming posts. One was rock climbing. And one was writing in a whole new genre.

Next time: how I decided to try stepping out of romance. And just how long I fought it.

Meanwhile, I’d love to hear about the big fears you’ve chosen to face! Please tell your story in the comments!

-Victoria

Filed Under: Evelyn After Tagged With: Evelyn After, midlife crisis, personal

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