Too emotional, not emotional enough?

I am grateful for this gift of time for writing. My book is chugging along, and I am pleased with myself for sitting down with it nearly every day. The book is steadily taking shape, and I’m proud of my near-daily commitment to it.

The first draft is finished. I am knee deep in the tangled guts of the story, some days lost in a maze of endless revisions. Other times, I want to cut my heart out when my raw emotions begin to simmer across the page. I push and pull, insert and discard. Is it good? Too emotional, not emotional enough?. Too much drama, not dramatic enough?. Oh hell yes, or oh hell no, are the humorous moments laughable? Is the humor truly funny, or is the joke on me?

Between the hair-pulling moments and the pat-on-the-back, I swing between despair and delight as I judge the story’s worth. Meanwhile, my hairstylist schemes to volumize my thinning hair while I try to decide whether to stick to nonfiction or keep the pen plodding across a fictitious page.

The manuscript is nearly ready to meet its beta readers. I’m still chasing the elusive plot holes, and polishing the prose. Above all, my biggest hope is that it’s a story worth reading.

Who will the story speak to? The heart of the tale beats for women, especially those who are healers. Though I hope men, too, will find meaning within these pages.

This is literary fiction, rooted in history, with just a touch of magic to keep the pages turning.