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Lost and Found

October 15, 2019 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster, Writing tagged as Craft, experience, fans

For the last year I have been obsessed with one word: lost.

One of the reasons is that I have been working on a book entitled Lost Witness. I didn’t choose to write this book; I did it because fans of The Witness Series wanted to know what happened to Billy. After Dark Witness, my intent was to let readers imagine the next chapter in my character’s life for themselves. The more they asked, the more I retreated from the responsibility of making those creative decisions. There were a hundred permutations of the relationships the readers wanted me to address, a thousand ways I could disappoint the people who had invested so much of their reading time in Josie Bates and friends. In short, the fear of disappointing them, myself, and, most of all, these characters we all love created a most fearful case of writers block—and then life stepped in to completely paralyze me.

First, my fabulous, incredible, 95 year-old mom moved to Missouri to be near more of my brothers and sisters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This was not something she wanted to do; it was something she needed to do. She now lives in a beautiful place where she is safe and secure, with at least three of her children seeing her everyday – something I couldn’t do no matter how much I wanted to. I am keenly aware that she felt a terrible loss when her house was sold and she left dear friends here in California. Her move left a hole in my heart, too. There was the sadness that comes with this kind of separation even though I knew the decision was for the best. While this was going on I lost seven friends. Some were closer than others, but all of their deaths were surprising. Six of them were my peers, and that knowledge alone brings a huge reality check with it.

Lost Witness became a symbol of twelve months of upheaval, of real life stopping my work dead in its tracks. Days, weeks, and months came and went and I thought I would never write again. I didn’t know how to answer readers who wrote asking about my progress so I stayed silent. I visited my mom; she visited me. I went to memorial services, and I shed a few tears, and I read books, but I didn’t work until one really good day. That day I talked to my mom and she was excited about a lecture she had heard, she had gone to dinner with a new friend, my sister had taken her on an adventure, and my brothers had stopped by for Margaritas.

I visited the widow of my dear friend, Richard, and we talked about his books and remembered what a wonderful man he had been. Part way through that day I had an epiphany about the book that was languishing on my computer. It was time to move forward, not move on.

I began to work on Lost Witness in earnest. I heard Josie, Archer, Hannah and Billy’s voices clearly in my head. There would be no bow ending, but that was okay. I don’t think the readers expect that either because life isn’t perfect. Life is hopeful and exciting. It is about resiliency, and courage, and memories of lives well lived, and about loving those who remain.

I am so thankful to the readers who made me realize that I had somehow done more than write books—I had created lives they cared about. They felt a loss when Josie’s voice suddenly went silent, when Billy hadn’t been accounted for, when Hannah was alone. It took a while for me to understand what they were telling me, but I finally got it. Loss is never the end, it’s simply the beginning of another part of life. It doesn’t matter if those lives we care about are real or imagined, we still want to know what happens next.