How Wayward Daughter Became my Weird Grief Project

CW: Pregnancy loss, grief

In March 2021, my daughter Evelyn was stillborn. It was one of those terrifying moments in my life that I never expected in a million years... and I'm a pretty anxious person so I expected a lot of other things. Just not this.

One thing I learned from the experience was that nobody really knows how to deal with grief, especially when it comes to a baby dying or a pregnancy loss because it's not a person most people actually got to know. While I'd gotten a few well wishes from friends and family, I'd also gotten a lot of people who thought they could one-up me (because for some reason people think that's okay) and a lot of people who twisted their words so I'd end up assuring them that they were doing fine. It was one of those strange mind fuck things that built up to the point that I became a very angry person.

To combat our grief, one of the biggest suggestions we got from people we know was to delve into a hobby. So we did. We tried a lot of new things like painting miniatures and getting really into puzzles, but we never really stuck with anything long-term at first. Until my fiancé got really into gardening again and turned our little balcony into a green space with plenty of treats during the summer.

In the meantime, I tried to go back to writing. I'd always found writing things out to be soothing and I'd tried to query a book in the past (It was definitely not ready. I had so much to learn still) so I kept assuring myself I could go back to the books I'd started Before I got pregnant, I'd been writing some Middle Grade books and when I read them back, they were fine but I didn't love them. Not in the way I'd loved them before. Something just kept falling flat and I couldn't figure out why so I put it by the wayside and kept telling myself something would come to me sooner or later.

And it did. Just not in the way I expected.

In the YA book I'd originally queried, there were two secondary characters that my readers had singled out time and time again for being "mean but hilarious" and I'd been joking to my friends for years that I'd give them their own story. I didn't think I'd actually do it though. I didn't think I liked them enough to do anything other than a document of one-off jokes I'd thought of, but then I had a very strange conversation with a friend about Pokémon. Yup. I know. Weird. Stay with me though.

My friend and I were joking about characters in both of our books and what kind of Pokémon they'd have if given the chance and she brought up that favorite secondary character, saying that she wouldn't want one around because it would be too much work, and for some reason, it sparked an idea. A teenage monster hunter.

How original.

But I fiddled with the idea anyway because thinking about it helped me realize what some of the other stories I'd written were missing. I thought at the very least, it would help me fix those other stories. Until pieces just started falling into place for this story. The ideas I came up with reminded me of the things I loved when I was in high school: shows like Gilmore Girls and Supernatural. The minute I realized this would be a story about a mother and a daughter, the easier the plot fell into place.

I thought it would be a fun short story that would jumpstart my love for writing again, but it just kept going. I ended up with a 10k story that was about 4 scenes and featured a girl (Genesis) who was angry and frustrated with the way her life was going and how she'd do anything to change it. Maybe it was because I was so angry all the time in the midst of my grief, but for the first time she struck a chord with me. I loved writing her. But I still wasn't sure what I'd just done.

I sent it out to my writing friends for their opinions. Was it fine as it was? Could I write more? Etc. Etc. Unanimously (possibly because they felt bad for me but also possibly because it was good) everybody wanted more and so I wrote every free chance I had. I let my anger and frustration flow out on the page through the characters who were probably angrier than the average teenager, but for me, it was freeing. While gardening had become the way my fiancé dealt with his sadness and frustration, I channeled all of mine into this angry little book. I wrote it, edited it, sent it to beta readers, and revised it over and over again before I came to the conclusion that I don't think there's ever been a book I loved as much as this one.

So when it was done, I was left with the question: Now What?

I thought about querying for a hot minute and I'd entered mentorship contests with the thought that maybe somebody could help me turn it into something I could send to agents. However, at the same time, I was watching one of my friends go through the process of having her book traditionally published and I realized that just wasn't for me.

I thought about shelving it or putting it on Wattpad, but my fiancé and my friend peer pressured me into self-publishing. Not so much in the way that they made me do something I didn't want to do, but they gave me the assurance that it wouldn't be a waste of time to try it. And honestly? It's not for everybody, but all the tasks for self-publishing have been really great for keeping me busy and I find little ways to get excited during every part of the process.

Soon Wayward Daughter will be out in the world and for better or worse, I will always appreciate that book for being the project that helped me work through the anger I felt in my grief.