Dear Beloved Readers,
My sincere thanks to one and all for emailing me. If you got a letter that had spelling errors or just plain ditzy stuff in it. . . .word association football. . . forgive me. I'm trying to get my new e-mail program to work with Outlook so that I have a spellchecker and I can actually see the words (Webmail prints them very small). That won't help the ditziness, because it was caused by days of lack of sleep. . . as I told one reader, I finally fell asleep on my keyboard. I was determined to answer every single e-mail. I'm still determined; I'm just asking for everyone who hasn't been answered to be patient a bit longer. I've got so many and I don't want to skip anyone. I've read many, many more
To those so far: thank you so much for the nice things you said about the website and the art and (humbly) the stories. Without the stories I would have gone stark, raving mad, while I was unable to write the longer books. Without Jan's pictures to inspire me, I doubt I could have kept writing. So thank you for your wonderful comments and sweet words-I have passed them on, when appropriate.
Meanwhile, I see that a number of you want to know what I did while couldn't write. While I would strongly recommend that you not read this if you have lost someone dear to you recently, or are connected with anyone who is currently battling cancer, or are just generally sensitive, here it is, the truth, written-for the first and only time-on the Internet. This is copyrighted, and I do not want it reproduced without the warnings.
What I Did on My "Vacation"
by Ljane Smith ©
On my vacation . . .
I watched my brother-in-law fight not to die and I watched my mother die in spite of all we could do.
I helped to care for my sister's children; I supported my sister in the hospital as her husband fought for his life, and I helped to care for my mother's tumor-broken arm, broken ankle, and terminal lung cancer.
I went insane, a bit. More than a bit.
I lost the ability to write fiction entirely. I couldn't . . . not wouldn't, not didn't, but couldn't write . . . any more than I could compose Aida or draw a picture like Magritte, as I told one reader . . . .
Hmmm. That's the short version. But the long version is only for adults, and adults who aren't easily shaken up at that. It's very intense and very upsetting. WARNING: The only people who should read it are those who can handle. . . well, just about anything.
Dear readers of this section,
This section was originally much, much more graphic, but on the advice of a very wise and thoughtful friend, I deleted the details that might make someone faint or throw up. If you really want to know about what these diseases do, there's information on the Internet.
My strong, brave, dauntless brother-in-law was diagnosed with what very quickly progressed to Stage IV melanoma approximately ten years ago. It's a dreadful disease; I plan to put up some guidelines on the web written by my sister because the incidence is steeply on the rise, especially among kids and teens. And unfortunately, the chances of surviving for even five years ranged from 2 to 5 percent back then. I don't know if they've gotten better now. I pray they have.
That means that, back then, after five years all but 2 to 5 percent of those who got Stage IV melanoma were dead. Most of them died in the first nine months. But for some, like my brother-in-law, it was a years-long struggle, with many different therapies, all gruesome, and many operations, all terrifying. And even now, there are no guarantees. We're just grateful for every disease-free day.
His life is, literally, a miracle. But it's a miracle he made for himself, by his strength, his positive attitude, his refusal to give up, and his brave endurance.
From the beginning when I began helping with caring for the children and supporting my sister, I lost the ability to write. At least, I lost the ability to write anything that wasn't trash. There were countless versions of Strange Fate that I wrote and threw away because they were so awful. I'd sit and stare and stare at the computer and finally, after half an hour or so, I would write "Sarah." Then I would stare at that. Whatever finally came out was painfully worthless.
I was so close to death, seeing it, hearing it, smelling it. . . watching its effect on those I loved the most. How could I write about pretend undead people, when real death was leering at me, gibbering, like a mad-eyed monster that I couldn't stop, when my family was going through this desperate day-by-day struggle?
I made my niece wait to read any of my books until she was 13, because even my middle-age books have some pretty scary stuff in them. Well...my sister's kids were kids had to be very brave from a very young age because their dad was under a death sentence, and they knew. Kids pick up on things like that. My brother-in-law was diagnosed when my niece was 7 or 8, I believe, and my nephew 5 or 6. Anything connected with death, dying was Not Good.
My mother's death from cancer just over one year ago really devastated them. She and my father lived only a couple of blocks away from the kids-thank God, because my sister had to be with her husband in the hospital so often. My brother-in-law was constantly having either bio-chemo therapy or bio-therapy, or vaccine therapy or some kind of therapy. Unless he had to have an operation. He's had eight so far, two on his brain. All the operations terrified us. He had an extraordinarily aggressive strain of what the veterans of the disease call The Beast. An operation could have shown that the cancer had spread so far that. . . .
I can't even finish that.
The brain operations were the scariest.
But so far we've beaten The Beast! This is only because my brother-in-law is the bravest guy in the world and was willing to undergo every clinical trial that offered any hope, at all. My sister-and, humbly, I, especially in the beginning-were the ones to find the clinical trials. I started while she was still in the first shock. But my sister became extremely knowledgeable about medicine, so much so, indeed, that we all almost consider her a doctor now. When her husband was, after. . . what, seven years?. . . finally confirmed a solid NED (they don't say "cured" of melanoma, just "NED": no evidence of disease) we were all so happy. We thought it was a miracle. It was a miracle.
And then disaster struck. The years of bio-therapy are undoubtedly what gave him leukemia-and this time he went into the hospital and didn't come out. He was in for a solid month . . . twice, I believe. I do remember one time when he desperately needed blood and there was no match. And then from his baby sister, a match. He had an emergency procedure like a bone marrow transfusion, and, once again, he kept fighting until he was disease free.
Meanwhile my mother, who had previously fallen and broken her arm at a spot where a tumor had eaten through the bone (4 separate operations to get the steel pins to stay in, while my brother-in-law was having some of his most difficult stages) broke her ankle.
Total utter disaster. For some reason she had X-rays of her chest, and . . . they showed that she had terminal lung cancer. Without grueling chemo and a chancy operation, she had six to nine months to live.
I'd nursed her through the arm operations, but at first I couldn't even take this new fact in. In about an hour it had permeated my entire body.
After months and months of terrible, unendurable, indescribable chemotherapy, there was one hope: a doctor who seemed to be a miracle-worker. [Details of normal lung cancer operations deleted: you can find out on the Web.]
We had to audition for this doctor. He only wanted otherwise-healthy patients, and my mother was so broken already. But we put on bright shiny smiles and did our best.
The operation...and malfunction. The doctor used a suture machine that cut veins and arteries, and then sutured them. Sometime in removing the upper lobe of her lung, this machine cut but didn't suture. While trying to make sure she didn't bleed out and die on the operating table, the doctors compressed and damaged the phrenic nerve.
That's the one that helps you to breathe.
So, now my mother needed to be put on a ventilator. [Details deleted-you can find them on the Internet.] We took it in shifts, my sister, father, and I, so that someone she knew was always with her. It went on for months, and although my dad hired round-the-clock caregivers she always ended up with mysterious bruises from falls we didn't see. Finally, an up-to-date doctor gave her an anti-psychotic and she slowly regained her grasp on reality. She even slowly was weaned off the ventilator.
It seemed we'd cheated death again. Joy. Joy. Joy.
Then, the hardest blow in any of our lives. The cancer was back. [details deleted]. Her last words were "I love you." A day later, she finally died while I was holding her hand. One year and a few months after being diagnosed. One year and a bit ago, she died. On January 10, 2007, she died.
WARNING: The below is very, very graphic. If I were you, I'd skip it.
It's the first time I've seen anyone die. It isn't peaceful or gentle or anything like that. It's death by asphyxiation and it's hideous [details deleted. If you really want to know, any doctor can tell you. I myself wasn't able to give all the details; it was too grueling.]
Well. It seems that after a year I still can't describe it, what happened. If you've been with someone who's died slowly, then you know and don't need to be told. If you haven't, I don't think you can understand.
A miracle took place after my mother died. With all the "nursing" duties over, I began to write again. I'd never been terribly religious (until those I loved became ill) but I thought that perhaps somehow my mother had done this for me, that because I'd been faithful to her, the long years when I couldn't write were over.
First, I write poetry about my mother. (Bad poetry, but that's just me.) Then I write short stories about my characters. Then longer ones. And in between, sidling toward it, as it were, I tackle the big task . . . Strange Fate. Since it features most of the characters in the Night World, it's a monster . . . but I get over 300 pages of the final version. And over 100 pages of another monster that's been stuck inside my heart, trying to get out . . . Damon.
Now I'm in heaven, because, wow, I'm writing. Even the first year that I couldn't write was hell. After so many years, being able to write again...as I said, it seems to be a miracle arranged by my angel-mother. My only regret is that she couldn't live to see me write again. She knew how much it hurt me not to be able to, and she would have been so happy..............sorry. Crying too hard now to see what I'm typing.
I don't know whether it's a publisher or agent who suggests I put up my own Ljane Smith website. It's a scary idea. The Internet is scary these days. Once it gave me information about melanoma clinical trials. But now, doing my Ljane Smith website means I have to "write code." And I don't know how to "write code." But then I realize that I don't have to-I can have someone else write the code, and as for content . . . well, I have the stories I wrote. I ask my agents, who say I can even put up parts of the books that I'm slowly easing out of my heart and onto my computer. It's a delicate, fearfully tricky process, getting the books to keep flowing out. I'm like James Herriot trying to untangle twin lambs and get them born alive.
But as for my website, the other problem is that all those words needs decoration of some kind. A huge block of text would be so boring. So while my website-my own website, with my name on it-WOW-is being written, I find Jan. I ask him for 2 by 3 inch doodles, to put at the beginning of each story, and I describe the characters to him. But Jan is like me, an utter perfectionist, and he says he's inspired by my characters.
He draws a full size picture of Keller-I've written a story about Keller, because I love to write about her-and it's gorgeous. I'm overwhelmed. He's giving me these pictures of my characters, and they're so beautiful. I want to share them with anyone who finds my website.
Everything is going so smoothly. I'm writing Strange Fate and Damon, and my website, which will come out in the summer, is being written for me. And I have Jan's wonderful pictures.
Then a big surprise: the book which was scheduled to be out in the summer has already been released and is on the New York Times bestseller list. I've never dreamed of that. But I decide we can't wait to put up a website. The code-writers cobble something together in a few days, bless them.
It's not much, but it does have some of the stories that helped break my writers block, and some of Jan's wonderful art. We put the picture that Jan did of me with a unicorn on the first page because all the other pictures have their homes in stories or sneak peeks.
I feel grateful that I already have written an introduction that only needs to be changed a little, and a biography, and a FAQ page. Now it seems like a real website. Up it goes, along with my hopes.
And to the email account I've opened, info@ljanesmith.net, hundreds of emails come. I'm overwhelmed again. I read them and read them, and answer and answer until I've gone without sleep for days and days. Then I just read.
They're so nice. People who love my brand new website and its stories. I'm so happy. They're so sweet. People who saw my books prominently displayed at book stores-at last. I'm so happy. People who have been working on keeping my books alive and spreading them all over the place. How kind of them. People who collect them, cherish them, even the ugliest ones with the weirdest covers. All that work, all that talent, put to use on my books. Writers writing fan fiction about the characters. Artists drawing fan art about my scenes or people. They make me so happy. . . the only problem is how to answer them all. I've promised to answer, but I also have two manuscripts of two books already promised and then. . . a decade's worth of ideas suddenly dumped into my mind. Ideas for short stories, for picture books, for children's books, for YA books, for adult books
I always write happy endings for my stories. It's a bad habit I have. I am old enough to realize that tragedy is a higher art form. But I can't stop. I don't even want to stop.
I want so much for this story to have a happy ending.