I won't give up - damn it!

If you have been following me on facebook you will know that my writers' group told me that they no longer wanted to read and/or critique my novel because my protagonist was too introspective, she was nameless, there wasn't enough dialogue and it was too safe.

Hmmmm.

My novel (which I wrote during the 2015 NaNaWriMo) is about a depressed woman who has decided, once and for all, that at the end of the month she will end her life.

It has been something she has been putting off for months, and this month, the Month of November she is determined.

However, even though the decision has been made she still goes on with her life, her routine, and this month her routine gives her some insights into the eventual decision she makes.

I included snippets of the Novel through the Month of November 2015 if you are interested. The first entry is featured in my sidebar to the right.

Anyways, to make a long story short, or maybe a short story longer, I wrote something yesterday to add to one of my chapters.

Trigger Warning if you have ever contemplated suicide or know someone that has this may be a difficult read. It was a difficult write.


The thoughts would cross her mind from time to time.

Driving on the highway, going one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, the thought would flit across her conscious mind that she could just turn the wheel and head into a tree, or an oncoming car or off a cliff.


Or sitting on a ferry, quietly reading and eating a muffin, the thought would come. I could just stand up, walk outside to the railing, and step over.

Or walking on the side of the road, it would be so simple to take one step to the right into the oncoming traffic.

Or in the mornings while she shook out the pills she seemed to so desperately need, sometimes she would shake out the whole bottle and imagine how easy it would be to swallow them all.

Or swimming, even swimming, she would imagine not coming up for the air her lungs so desparately craved. Instead she could just breath in a tablespoon of water. Just one tablespoon.

The thoughts would be fleeting enough, and she never turned the wheel, never got up from the cafeteria chair, never stepped to the right, never inhaled the water, never swallowed the handful of pills.

But still, and all, the thoughts had found their way front and center and for a few hours they would haunt her.

She had been there before - staring out the window at the cedars and the rain, the birds and the clouds, thinking that finally she understood why one would take their own life.

It isn't about it being simpler. It isn't about others being better off without you. It was simply about wanting the pain to stop that much. Like tearing off a bandage. Certainly the fall, the drowning, the crash, the overdose would be unpleasant for a split moment.
But then?
Then it would be over.

She knew these thoughts would eventually take her back to the doctor's office, back to therapy, back to perhaps a change in medication.

She knew these thoughts if they persisted should lead her to tell someone.

But what if this month they didn't.

What if this month she let nature, or fate, or flaw just take its course.

But then she would think of her son's blue eyes, her husband's touch, her sisters' voices, her brothers' humour, her friends's concerns, even the annoying cat and she would make the call.

She always had put others before herself and in this case it was perhaps a good trait to have.

Perhaps.