Sharing Rachel

Last night as I was driving home from work I started thinking about why I am struggling so much when working on Fish, the book I will be releasing in October.  I know the main points of the story and the dialogue will flow as it should when I get to those points in the story. I have a playlist set up for the novel Sharing Strength and Fish is simply the novella prequel to Sharing Strength so everything seems to be in order. So why is it so damn hard?

For one thing, Rachel is not the main character in Sharing Strength. She is important. I would even go so far as to say her role in the book is vital to the story. However, she is not the main focus. The playlist is for overall mood and leaning more toward the main characters Kyle and Jasmine. Ok, understanding that I thought about Rachel and came up with several songs that work specifically for her. Now she has her own playlist. Things should be easier, but they aren't.

Rachel doesn't have the easiest time in Sharing Strength. Her trials and tribulations are emotional and at times painful. She is that character that tugs at my heart strings and knowing everything she deals with in the novel I wanted to give her some dignity in her novella. The problem is, the prequel is the book that explains how she became the person she is in Sharing Strength. I have to put her through even more to get her to the point she is at the beginning to the novel. I cry for her because of everything about her. Her age, just sixteen almost seventeen years old. She is struggling with her parents, her friends, even her teammates on the swim team have a tendency to make things difficult for her at different points. She has been sheltered and so when adversity arises she has no idea how to handle it.

She comes from a strict upbringing with the focus on religion. She is the epitome of a "goody two-shoes" and holds onto that even when rumors and bullying start to make her appear otherwise. Rachel is someone who fights to prove she is the person she says she is but every time she falls down it gets a little harder to get back up. She doesn't want to give up. She wants to heal from every time she has fallen, been kicked down or thrown, she is just having trouble finding that hand to help stand her up and dust her off when she needs it.

Fish is the second novella in the Sharing Strength series but because Survivor was based on a true story and only parts of Rachel's personality and experience come from a real person it is more difficult to write. I know she will step up and share the story if for no other reason than she wants to help, even if it is as a fictional character reaching out to a world beyond her own.