Wildflower (Kris Bryant)

35 The C Word

Serenity

While Kris was out on his last away series of the season I get a lot done around the house. I finish getting everything in and designing the place so it felt like home. So it felt like our home.

Once I was satisfied with how it all looked and there was nothing left to do I had two options: I could meet up with my publisher who I was working on writing a book with or I could buy another dog.

But before I inevitably add to our growing animal family I decide to head into the city to a little coffee shop by the park. I let myself in and find my publisher drinking a coffee in the back of the cafe. So I go over to her and shake her hand before sitting down. We've been talking for a while but we've only met face to face once before. She was a very busy woman, good at what she does, and I know that choosing her meant I wouldn't get as much time with my publisher as I would with other ones. But she was the only one I felt like was really into my ideas and I could work well with. She wasn't too much older than me and she had quite the resume. I was excited to work with her, along with being pretty nervous too. I would love to have done this when Kris was here so he could hold my fidgeting hand. But I also wanted to do this when he's gone so my heart doesn't miss him so much.

"It's nice to see you again miss Simmons" she starts as I sit across from her.

I tuck my long navy blue skirt under me as I slide into the booth. I set my large bag next to me as I turn to her. "Nice to see you too" I smile.

"What do you have for me today" she wonders.

"I know I pitched the idea of a vague novel to you the first time we met, but things have changed since then. A lot has changed actually, and I was wondering what you thought of me tweaking the story a little" I wonder.

"Change" she questions as she sets her cup down.

"I know.. the c word" I tease as she laughs. "But I want this book to be real. And not the characters or story but the feelings, but the situations should be real. It should be true even if it's a fiction story. You know" I ask.

"So what were you thinking about changing" she wonders.

"Not much. But I don't want to main character to be so weak. She should be strong. She should know her way and know where to go. I'm so tired of the women in books being so broken. We're not broken, just bent. We fall down but we rise up too. And I just want the character to know that things seem dark, sometimes you can't even see, but there's a light. And you'll only find it if you keep your eyes open and look inside. Everything we need we have, we just need to courage to find that light" I explain.

"So are you getting rid of the secondary protagonist" she wonders.

"No, he'll still be there and he'll be important. But the story won't be so much about him. It'll be about the girl and her want to change the world she lives in. And while he is crucial to the story she is the antagonist. She's the one who realizes that there's something wrong and the only way to change it is to change herself" I say.

She taps the table with her pen in her hand as she thinks about what I was saying. She pulls out the same paper she had last time we met as she tries to see what I had said before. "There's not a lot of good books with strong female leads. Not since Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen and even then they were met with hard criticism. Even to this day those books get a lot of scrutiny. How do I know this is different" she wonders.

I smile to myself as I let out a sigh. "Because this girl is me and so many other women out there. Even the men who had to watch everyone around them live because they weren't sure they fit in this world. This girl can be the person we wished we could be, she can pave the way for us to be able to take control of the things we can control and let the other things go.