On the spectrum of self-indulgence, writing a book blog about a book you wrote yourself, seems a bit on the “I’m so special, where’s my gold star” end.  Be that as it may, I started this blog to log the books I’ve loved in my life, and for all its faults and maddeningly uncooperative characters, I’m so happy to say that I accomplished what I set out to do with The Goose Waltzer—write a book I’d love to read.

Which is good because I ended up reading it about 643 times.

I will say that I never thought the last sentence I would write in my novel would be the first sentence of the book.  Seventeen years I worked on The Goose Waltzer—through the death of my father, an ugly divorce, a cross-country move, earning my degree, learning to love my single life, then meeting the man who showed me how to love the couple life—and through it all, I STILL didn’t know where my goose story started.

Beginnings are hard because by the time you’re ready to start writing a novel, the lives of your characters have already begun.  You already know them as children—shy or silly or afraid.  Teens who begin making choices that lead them on their paths toward adulthood, their hurts, their achievements, the desires or loves they might give their lives for…  So where DOES their story begin?  Where does mine?  Or yours?

It wasn’t until I sat down to write the back cover copy for the book that I finally saw its beginning.  And it’s something that marks a beginning for many of us—loss.  So often in this life it seems that our story starts just when we think it’s ending.  My divorce surely felt like an ending.  Leaving my friends and family behind in Phoenix also felt like an ending.  Attending the funeral of the only man in my life who I felt had ever loved me (at least at the time) absolutely felt like an ending.

We meet all of the characters in The Goose Waltzer at an ending in their lives.  Albert, newly widowed.  Cee-Cee, suddenly the child of divorced parents.  And Clare, who, on the night the novel begins, has decided her life will end.  But for all of my characters, it’s their ending that opens the door to their new beginning.  And as I wrote the adventure of the next phase of all their lives, I started to believe there might be an adventure waiting in my own life as well.

Read The Goose Waltzer for a reminder that there are always journeys left to be had, ways we can help others in this world, and ways we can become more loving and compassionate, ourselves.  Read the book if you’re a Tennyson fan, as my dad was (there are a ton of Easter eggs in there!).  And read The Goose Waltzer to assure yourself that even if you think you’re staring at a brick wall in your own journey, there’s a doorknob in there somewhere.