Story Frame 49 – The Heartbreak of Losing the Muses & A Danish Cure

After Karen died, my mother didn’t want to live in Florida anymore. Too many memories. And so she packed up and moved to Alexandria to be closer to us. This was nice for the kids and having her nearby meant she and I often went out to art museums or the movies together, after which we’d enjoy a nice glass of wine and a meal and conversation at a small, cozy restaurant.

We took turns choosing the films we’d see. She could be relied upon to pick anything by Woody Allen or starring Jeremy Irons. The only one I can remember choosing was Love Actually, which I loved but she didn’t see the point of – at all.

It was nice to have this interest in common. Even though I worked in documentary film, and not feature films, I felt like I was sharing a little bit of my world with her. And so, I always looked forward to these evenings – until that one night when I may have silently cried in the darkness throughout an entire film, even though it wasn’t a sad one.

Earlier that afternoon, I’d arrived at my mother’s flat in Old Town to pick her up as usual. When she opened the door, she didn’t look happy to see me.

“Oh, just a minute, honey” she said, hesitantly, before turning her back on me. Not the cheerful greeting I usually got from her!

She went into the kitchen, then returned a moment later holding a newspaper clipping in her hand. Wondering what news could possibly take the place of ‘hello,’ I scanned the torn fragment she handed me.

As I read it, my heart stopped beating.

It was a New York Times review of the book I had been working on for several years – a New York Times book review of my book about the muses!

“Smart, sympathetic and keenly observed,” the reviewer wrote. This was the review of my book I had long dreamed about!

But wait a minute…

Someone else’s name was mentioned as the author – not mine. Also, I hadn’t actually finished writing the book yet.

The book about the muses I’d been working on for years was, I thought, a unique take on a rather obscure topic. I’d woven together my passion for the creative process and my own career experiences to write it, while putting my degree in psychology to good use. And now it felt like a stranger had put her name on my memoir. Could someone else have really had the same idea?

I was crushed, devastated, and breathless. My dream, my breakthrough project, my years of research and work – and there it was, in the New York Times with someone else’s name on it. I suspected I’d been sold out.

Two years earlier, my literary agent had sent my book proposal to an editor in New York looking for her opinion. The editor’s harsh and skeptical critique left me too shattered and insecure to write much of anything since then. Had she, however, liked the concept, the characters, my sample chapters and my outline enough to pass it along to someone else? Or was it all just an incredible coincidence?

Over the following days, I received phone calls and emails from friends all over the country, all of whom were well aware of what I’d been working on and who were now wondering – hey, isn’t that your book?!

In the weeks that followed, I took long, lonely walks on the path that runs alongside the Potomac River trying to catch my breath, trying to reconstruct what could possibly have happened, trying to staunch the flow of tears.

I berated myself for being too thin-skinned and not continuing to work on the book I believed in, despite the criticisms. The Muse Factor was my concept, inspired by my own life. So, why hadn’t I kept writing it, despite the critique I’d received? That was the question I needed to face head on and answer for myself.

As time receded and the stinging heartbreak began to ease ever so slightly, another thought occurred to me. Wait a minute, my idea had been good enough to land a book deal; I just didn’t have the right name. Or at least a recognizable name. Okay, this was a painful lesson learned: not to ever give up on my ideas.

The Danes have an expression, “to stand up where you fell down.” They are referring to the ritual of taking a shot of Gammel Dansk –or bitters – the morning after they’ve drunk too much the night before.

Being half Danish, I gradually came to the realization that the only way to deal with a loss of this magnitude was, in fact, to stand up where I had been knocked down. I needed to begin writing another book.

Fortunately, a new idea for one would soon fall into my hands. Literally.

Coming up next: Story Frame 50 – Introduction to the Third Dimension