So... I'm working on some novel ideas for a publishing class and we had to come up with two novel ideas and I'm looking for some feedback on the ideas I came up with. We only needed to come up with two so... yeah.
They're very rudimentary and choppy... and probably not meant to be read right now but I needed to get them out there...
"27 to Life"
I get almost a sick sense of hilarity when I tell people 'My father killed a woman 6 years ago' but it's how I deals with the every day.
At 12, my parents separated because my father found someone 'new' whom he decided he loved more than my mother.
The day was July 3, 2002. my mom and I had come home from a good day when the phone rang. My mother got to the phone first.
"Colleen's dead!"
...I sunk into the chair behind me and immediately sobbed out "my daddy's a murderer."
The phone rang that night. I was in mom's room. Dad was on the other line and he wanted to talk to me. I cried harder than I ever have in my life. He said nothing more than 'I'm sorry' while I held so tight onto a teddy bear that I thought it would rip in half.
When I found out that my father was a man who killed the woman whom he loved at one point, but then 'wanted to make her feel the pain she had made him feel' I knew that I was no longer 'daddies little girl' but the daughter of a man who I didn't want to be associated with for the rest of my life.
What kept me together was therapy and my horse, Reno. Until Dad sold Reno to pay the government, because it costs the government money to keep an inmate in jail while they wait for sentencing.
it took 9 months for David Throm to reach a sentence. The trial was postponed twice.
Life.
Am I a horrible person to say I was glad?
And....
"Jesus Fakes"
My father was one of those people who was either too stingy to give money to the Church or he truly did believe that God was intended to be free and one shouldn't be forced to go to church to believe in God. In either case, I never went to Church, never had 'the word' instilled in me, and never really cared either way until the day I had to actually think about the things I wasn't caring about and had to start faking my way into the world which some people were completely brainwashed.
I became one of the self-proclaimed "Jesus-Fakes," a brand of people who faked religion while working around a group of people who believed so deeply in Christ that every day was an amazing feat of fallacy. From an owner/boss who spoke in tongues to many fellow Jesus Fakes who couldn't quite fake it as well as I could, the quaint Christian coffee shop where Switchfoot could frequently be found blaring from the speakers because I couldn't stand any other kind of "God is Great" music was full of antics that any kind of God-faker could be made a believer.
4 comments:
Interesting subject choices. I hope the assignment was to just come up with ideas. I would hate to see anyone in the Throm family to make even 10 cents off of the death of my sister.
To clarify for you: Yes it is an assignment, but sometimes the proposals turn into novels. In this case, I cared quite a bit about the victim in question and too many logistical problems face me... I don't think publication is in my foreseeable future.
Anyway-
That's an interesting point of you to make toward me. I'm glad you think of me in such high regard.
Trust me, if I wanted to make a profit on this story, I wouldn't be writing a book (the book industry is dying if you didn't know) and I wouldn't be telling the story seven years after the fact.
Would you say the same of the author of White Oleander if the story were true?
Also think of it this way: The family of the victim lost a parent. But so did I.
Thanks for your feedback though. You helped me finish my overview for the assignment.
Im sorry to hear about your loss. I know it must be tough knowing that your father will one day be released and you will be able to see him again if you so chose to.
The victim's family however will never see their lost loved one. Colleen will never get a second chance at life, she will never get to hold her children in her arms and tell them she loves them, she will never be there to see her grandchildren.
I understand how life altering this event had to be for you, but before you say that you lost a parent remember that you don't have to pay your respects at a tombstone.
I can't believe how much condescension is in the comments given to me by you all. None of you know what I went through. None of you can ever know how it felt to learn that your father killed a woman whom you knew very well and cared for. Even if this book were to be published, you would still never be able to understand what it's like to be in those moments.
I knew Colleen for three years before she died. I was very close with her and her loss still carries with me today.
If I could pay my respects at her grave, I would but to this day, I don't know where she's buried. My respects, instead, are in the candles lit every year on the day of her death.
I did lose a parent. He missed out on the most pivotal parts of my life. He missed all four years of my high school life, and he's currently missing all four years of college. Just because my father isn't 6 feet under, doesn't mean I didn't lose a parent so don't pretend that them dying is the only way to lose someone.
This is officially the last comment that will be published on this post. I'm disabling the comments because none of you know what I went through and none of you will ever be able to understand the horrors of this kind of situation, unless you've gone through it yourself, so I'm not going to allow you to judge me or write anything libelous toward me any further.
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