And honestly I am. The revision is looking good, got the first feedback and there doesn’t seem much more than a bit of tweaking to do on it.

I’m feeling better, even went to the gym (Curves) today and yesterday. The workout darn near clobbered me, but I got through it.

Made a dent in the mountain of stuff I’ve got to read, and I got some very good news.

Let’s just say that Wanting Mor seems to be selling VERY well!

So why do I feel, hmm, I don’t know, a bit down?

Must be one of those ebbs. Or is it a flow? I can never tell them apart. Ebb is when the water retreats right? And the flow is when it advances, so if it’s advancing that’s positive, I guess.

Whatever, I just know that my writer mood goes up and down, like a sine curve, and I must be in one of the troughs right now.

Come to think of it, I’m probably due for it. I’ve been very ‘up’ lately.

And considering last night’s post, it had a tinge of melancholy, so I must have been starting to go down yesterday.

One of the things I’ve always told my kids is to pace themselves. Life is a marathon, it’s not a sprint.

So I crested the top, and finished running all the way down the hill, so I’m starting to climb again. Buckle down and dig in, I’ll get my second wind.

This is the part where perseverence comes in.

But I don’t get it. I should be very happy. Things are going very well, alhamdu lillah (all praise due to God).

Maybe it’s because I’m feeling nervous. The work in progress is very controversial! A good friend of mine said that it could tick off both conservatives and some liberals.

That’s not good.

Who’s left?

And yet, I wrote it as the truth, as I see it and feel it. Maybe I’m just scared.

Yeah, I think that’s it. I caught myself wondering if I should just put this novel into a drawer. Don’t send it out. Maybe it’s too controversial.

But what about the boy that died? The boy the story is based on? When I first started writing the novel I felt compelled to tell his story, or at least how I imagined it.

The details were so sketchy.  But I believed the lady who told it to me. I believed her when she said it really happened.

And strategically I thought it would be good to follow up Wanting Mor a story about an oppressed girl, with a story about an oppressed boy.

I hate it when one gender is overly victimized. Right now the market is flooded with stories about sad and oppressed girls. But what about the boys?

Are we really supposed to believe that only girls get molested and abused?

Hmm. It seems like I’m talking myself into sending this story out to be published after all. I wonder what people will think of me.

And yet there could be so many parallels with North American society. That’s why I thought I Wanting Mor would resonate with people in the West. Yes, it was set in Afghanistan, and the main character was a very devout Muslim girl, but really, her circumstances are not that different from all kinds of girls abandoned by abusive addicted fathers here in the West.

Reading about it happening in another culture is a kind of ‘safe’ way for people to explore some of these issues.

Well this story is about a boy who’s done something so horrible he thinks he deserves to die. It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever written.

And the fact that I can sum it up so easily in one sentence is a very good sign.

And my fifteen year old son, loved it!

He said that it was very hard to read but that every boy over thirteen, should read it.

Take a deep breath. Remember what he said. Trust in Allah. And yes, send it out.