The Back Story to Blank Spaces

by Brenda Conaway

This story starts because of a dream. And it wasn’t a very good dream, at that. But to tell this story I have to go back in time. I think it was around 1988 or 1989.

Imagine yourself dreaming a dream over and over for a month or even two. That was how this whole thing started. I dreamed this very vivid dream about five or six times in a space of a month or two. The stupid thing became etched in my memory.

The dream was that I was kidnapped and held in a cabin. My brother was franticly searching for me. Only the brother in the dream looks nothing like either of my two brothers. He looked like Kevin Costner. I, of course, didn’t really look like me, either.

The dream was embedded in my mind. Every now and then I would think about it, let it play out in my mind. I added to it until I started thinking that this would make a good book.

Now jump ahead another six to eight months. I dreamed another very vivid dream. I was kidnapped, again, but this time I was a child and I was there with my father. No, he wasn’t the kidnapper, he was also kidnapped. And he looked nothing like my father. I don’t know who he looked like.

Once again the dream replayed itself several times over a short period of time. This time the dream would give more details with each showing. It, too, became etched into my memory, a permanent fixture in my mind.

After thinking that dream over many times, I thought that it, too, would make a pretty good book. This time the only thing I added was being rescued.

Now I am sure that some expert would say that the dreams mean something. Maybe, who knows? I only know that neither dream gave me bad feelings, like you do after having a nightmare. Or maybe, after dreaming them so many times, I had gotten comfortable with them.

For years I thought about these dreams occasionally. Sometimes I would even dream them again. Usually the dreams would come if I hadn’t thought of them in a while.

Then after one night of dreaming of one of them, I woke up thinking that the two dreams were connected. Wow! Combine the two dreams to make one book. I could almost feel the light bulb turning on above my head.

So I started doing just that, I started the process of writing a book. I started with the outline, and the characters’ names. I even started the opening paragraph.

Then I hit a road block. I could not, no matter how hard I tried, put the story down on paper. I even tried talking into a tape recorder. Still nothing.

The whole story was in my head but I couldn’t write it down. I tried and tried, rewriting the opening paragraph over and over. Still I couldn’t write any more of the story.

Several more years past, and the dreams stayed in my head. I continued to think of the dreams as a story needing to be written. I was now even thinking scenes through in my mind.

Actually writing the book in my mind, scene by scene. I would, on occasion, try to write it down, but each time I found it still wasn’t possible. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to have something in your mind and not be able to write it down?

Still more years went by. The idea of the book was still there and every now and again I would bring it out and adjust the story. Sometimes it was to add modern stuff to the story to keep it relevant to the times.

I still would try to write it. I also kept changing the names of my characters. I am not sure where or how I got the names. If you read my notes, you would see how many times the names were changed over the years.

Then I got a laptop computer. I could now type out the story. So once again, I tried to write it. I actually wrote about twenty pages but stopped because it wasn’t how I wanted the story to go. I tried to rewrite it but the rewrite wasn’t much better.

I also made my outline as a word document, along with a list of my characters, which now had another name change. Still I could not write the story.

During all this time, I worked. Usually eight hours a day. I had a husband, and a home. Somehow writing the story was pushed back. There were other more important things I needed to take care of.

Now it is March of 2009. I was lucky enough to be able to stop working in November of the year before. I was now in my late forties. My Mother was in her early eighties. At that time, I realized that more than anything, I wanted my Mom to be able to read a book that I had written.

Late March, early April, I got myself a new laptop. My other computer was about four or five years old. I loaded the latest Word program on the new computer.

Now I had a reason to write the book. An important reason. My Mom loves to read. Even today, she enjoys her books. When I was in second grade, my Mom decided that I did not read well enough for her. She went to the school and talked with my teacher. It was decided that I would be held back a year, to give me time to improve my reading. Today I doubt such a thing would happen. My reading was not bad enough for me to fail the grade. But because of my Mom, I did, in fact repeat the second grade.

We were not rich people. I would say we were upper, lower class. We did not take assistances from anyone but I think there were times that bills were delayed in being paid. My Dad said, buy groceries, and then pay the bills. My Mom would pay the bills and then buy groceries. We didn’t starve. We grew a garden every summer and Mom would can everything she could. My Dad worked for a farmer part time, and the farmer would give my Dad half of a cow or pig. No, we were not rich, money wise.

But the summer between my two second grades, Mom signed my up for a book club. Every month a new book would be send to me. I remember getting each of those beautiful books. They were clean, with beautiful pictures. To this day, I love the smell of books. I know we really did not have the money for those books, but I got them anyway.

My Mom knew how important it was to be able to read well. She and Dad didn’t have to buy those books; I could have read library books. But those were my books. I think she knew how important it was for me to have my very own books. How it gave me more incentive to learn to read.

Yes, making sure my Mom could hold in her hand and read a book that I had written was extremely important to me. There was nothing I wanted more. I could just picture her face, as I handed her a copy of my book. The dedication would, of course, be to her. And, of course, I would sign it for her. It would be the first book I signed.

Rather it sold or not, wasn’t important to me. But first I had to actually write it.

Now that I had my new computer and time enough to be able to sit and just write, I was ready to try to write my book again. I sat my butt down at the dining room table. And tried to write. Nothing. I looked back over all my notes, outlines, list of characters, and the twenty some pages I had written previously. Still nothing.

It was driving me crazy. Why couldn’t I write it down? It was all there, in my head, every conversation between my characters, every event, and almost every word I wanted to have in the book. But, no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t write it down.

After a whole month of trying, I finally turned to God. I said to Him, if you don’t want me writing this, then what exactly do you want me to write? Just tell me, please!

It was at this point, that I feel God intervened.

I am not sure where the idea came from, it sort of just popped into my head. I have been very blessed in my life. I decided to write down my blessings, all of them, at least all from my adult life.

Surprisingly, I had no problem writing about my blessings. I haven’t finished it because I consider writing the book to be one of my blessings. I was actually surprised just how many blessings I had received. But that is a story you will read later in this book.

After I finished writing as much as I could about my blessings, I started to write again on the first story. After much thought, I decided to call it Blank Spaces. Meaning the blank spaces in my main character’s memory and the blank spaces of the area I had decided was the location of the story. Everyone says that you should write what you know. I have lived in North Dakota since the Air Force brought us here in 1986. So, of course, that would be were the story takes place.

My husband said that Blank Spaces wasn’t the right name, since it was about repressed memories. I asked him what I should call it but he didn’t have any suggestions. I also asked him what the name of my main character should be, and he said Melissa. So my main character had another name change.

Now remember that I had said that my characters had had several different names. There was one name that never changed. And that name was Jesse Taylor. I wanted the character to be sort of a loner and Jesse has always sounded like the name of a loner to me.

Once again I sat down and tried to write. Amazingly I found I could actually write. I started it in May of 2009 and finished it in October of the same year. I wrote it double spaced. The page count was 610 and word count was over 140,000. God was still intervening.

Did I write it exactly as I had in my mind? No, I didn’t. I would be writing and an idea would come to me. I wasn’t sure where the idea came from but I felt compelled to write it, so I did. The story still has all the elements I wanted to include in it.

While I was writing, I started looking for a publisher. I found that most publishers do not want to work with writers; they only want to work with agents or with previously published authors. So I started to look for an agent.

At the same time, I looked into self publishing. I found that you can get just about anything printed, if you have the money. I couldn’t afford to pay thousands of dollars for just a few copies of the book. I would have to buy the books myself, and then sell them. Finding that out pretty much stopped me from going that way. I would stay with the traditional publishing.

I continued on with the writing, and still looking for an agent. I probably sent query letters to twenty-five to thirty agents. I have about twenty reject letters or emails. I have several wrong addresses and the rest I haven’t heard anything from them.

Each reject letter was like a knife to my heart. My dream of letting my Mom read my book was fading, fast. After all, she wasn’t getting younger.

I finished the book. I knew it was finished when I wrote a page and knew it was the last page. It felt like I had closed a book. It was done.

I have to admit that I had obsessed about my book. I felt like I couldn’t let it go until I had it written down. But once it was done, I felt a little sad. The characters had become part of my family, and I would miss them. But I also felt relief. The story was now written for the whole world to read.

Now I needed to find someone to edit it. I might be able to read rather well, but grammar has never been my strong subject. I wanted my book to flow. For that I would need to find someone to help. My husband, Gary, bless his heart, remembered that a friend of ours use to edit for a newspaper.

God intervened again.

Val Larson was more than willing to help. I had printed the book out in several copies; I took one of them to her. It took her a couple of weeks but she returned the copy with the corrections written on the pages. She suggested that I add more information about a couple of my character.

She also gave me a grade of A- for my grammar. She said that some professional writers had more mistakes than I did. I think that reading all of these years must have improved my grammar or God knows grammar.

I made the corrections. I did add on to a couple of my characters, giving them more personality. Now the final page count was 710, still double spaces, and over 146,000 words.

The book went back to Val. She reread it, made a couple more corrections, and returned it to me saying she thought it was pretty good. I made the corrections.

God has His plan and, believe me; His plan will come to pass. Only He could have my friend, the editor, also be familiar with music terms. You see Val grew up playing in a band with her family. One of my characters plays in a band and Val corrected the terms I used regarding the band.

My husband and I host exchange students every year. That year our students were from Sweden and Switzerland. We were lucky to have two very nice young women. I let Anna, from Sweden, read my book. She said that she enjoyed it. Sarah, from Switzerland, started to read it. She, too, seemed to enjoy it.

I was still looking for an agent. And still getting the rejection letters. I have to admit I was feeling very discouraged. I would talk to God and say that I know He had helped me. Why go to all this trouble and not let something come of it? It just didn’t make sense to me.

We are now in the New Year, 2010. I started my second ever Bible study with some of the women in the small town I live in. This one, like the first, was done by Beth Moore. It was on the Psalms of Ascent, Psalm 120 to 134. It was one of those Psalms that hit home for me. Psalm 127:1-2. It says, in effect, that without God’s approval everything we do is in vain.

That pretty much summarized what had happened when I first tried to write my book. But after I asked God for help, I could suddenly write it. I knew while I was writing my book that I was getting help.

And I realized that if God really had wanted me to write it, He would take it further. To prove the point even more, it was at this time that I first really noticed Jeremiah 29:11-13. For those of you who don’t know those verses, you should take the time to look them up. But they are saying that God wants us to prosper and all we have to do is ask Him.

But, of course, it isn’t that easy. God’s time is not our time. He has His plan and things do not happen until He is ready for them to happen. We can ask but until He is ready, we wait.

Now I prayed for patience. I knew He would let my book be published but only in His time.

Things don’t always work out like we want. I still have not found an agent. Earlier I said I had no interest in self publishing, but a couple of weeks later, I received an email from a self publishing company. They were running a special on having books published as an eBook.

I have to say that I wanted my book to be published in any way it could be published, and that included it as a digital book. My husband had bought me a Sony Reader for my Christmas present. I love it. Right now, I have fourteen books on it, including Blank Spaces. It is the roughly the size of a woman’s wallet. And that is how Sarah read my book. Then Apple came out with the iPad. On it you can download digital books/eBooks.

I thought to myself, this is perfect. I can have my book digitally published just as the iPad is taking off. So I contacted the publisher.

Why, suddenly, did I have interest in self publishing my book? By now, I think you know the answer to that question. Yes, I know that God has intervened again. I feel that now is the time He wanted me to have my book published. I feel that He has guided me every step of the way. Why do you think my title for this book is Every Step of the Way?

The publisher, Xlibris, is actually a publish-on-demand publisher. In other words, I don’t have to buy the books and resell them myself. People order from the publisher and the publisher fills the order and I get paid a royalty from the sale.

Easy, right? Not so, you have to pay for that privilege. The special price for the eBook was $299, regularly priced $399. But the representative said that for $599 I could get my book published in paperback and hardback as well as an eBook. And she would also upgrade me to the next level for the same price. I would get the professional level for the price of the basic level. The professional level gives you extra free books. It gives you promotional materials, like business cards and posters. It also includes the US copyright registration and the Library of Congress registration. Not to mention the book will also be available through Amazon, and Barnes and Noble online.

I know I sound a little like a commercial but how strange is it, that just when the iPad comes out, the opportunity comes available for me to get my book published? God and His timing.

Now I am back to waiting. The book was sent back to me by email to proof read and make changes if I want. I have to say again that I am not very good with grammar. I am sure that there are plenty of mistakes because I write like I talk.

I Okayed the book and waited. I am not good at waiting. I probably drove my Xlibris representative crazy. I just wanted to hold the book in my hand. According to the book’s webpage, the book was ready for publication. I was starting to get upset that someone else could see the book before me. I went back on my knees, asking for patience, again.

On May 14^th, I got my book, a hardcover and paperback copy. I cried and thanked God, cause without Him I know that I would not have been holding my book in my hand.

Next came getting the book to sell. Once again, I think the people at Xlibris are dreading every email I sent.

I had to just take the chance. I am still waiting to see if the book does well, I hope and pray that it does, but what is really important is that I was able to give my Mother a copy of my first book.

My family was thrilled when they found out that I had my book printed. Word had gotten out and my sisters and brother were afraid that our mother would hear about it before I could fly down and give her the book. Instead a mailed the signed copy to one of my sisters. She took the package to my Mom and called me on her cell phone. If I couldn’t see Mom get the book, I could hear her. My siblings were expecting Mom to open the package, read the cover, and break down in tears of joy. But my Mom just said ‘She said she was going to have it published’. My mother had faith that I would do what I had set out to do. But just because she didn’t seem surprised didn’t mean she was proud. I guess she called several people and then carried the book around, showing everyone.

My niece, Juli, isn’t much of a reader. She bought my book (I feel bad because I would have sent her a copy) and read it. She told me that she couldn’t put the book down. She used words like, I love it, and it was amazing. Her mother, my sister Nancy, said the same thing. She read it in two days. She loaned it to someone at work and that person said that they couldn’t put it down either. My Mom loved it and she too couldn’t put it down. She said that she got teary eyed reading parts of it. My brother was given a copy for his father’s day gift. He loved the gift.

The postmaster in our little town said that she was up until 1 am reading it.

Just about everyone who has read it has said the same thing, they couldn’t put it down. They had to find out what happened next. I am still getting the same reviews from people, they can’t put it down. Thank God!