First to go as I continued working on the manuscript was Stephen. He’s still in the novel, of course. There would not be a story without the role he plays in it. I may have needed to be in his head for a while myself to help me figure out just what his role was and how he felt about it, but, I decided, readers did not need to go there.

The next point of view to go was Hannah’s, even though for some time I thought What Happened to Ivy was her story. I won’t go into why, but it made sense to me at the time. Her pov was harder for me to let go of than Stephen’s.

Hardest of all to let go of was Ivy’s point of view. I loved Ivy and I loved how trying to imagine myself into her life helped me get to know her. But again readers didn’t need to go inside her head. Not only did they not need to, but as was the case with Stephen,  being inside her head would have undermined reader identification with David. Better for readers to experience the events of that important summer in David’s life strictly as he would have experienced them.

That said, I’d like to offer up one of Ivy’s scenes which, whether you’ve read What Happened to Ivy yet or not, won’t spoil anything for you.

Ivy can’t move. Daddy is holding her too tight.

   Mommy comes closer. She says the medicine tastes like cherries. It doesn’t.

   Ivy keeps her mouth closed. She kicks. She tries to roll over like Shamus. But Daddy says, “Damn it, Ivy,” and holds her tighter.

   Daddy is strong. It hurts when he holds her tight. It hurts her back and it hurts her arms and it hurts her head and she has to cry. And when she does, Mommy sticks the medicine in the back of her mouth. It smells like David’s armpits before his shower and it tastes like garbage and metal. Ivy wants to spit it out, but she can’t.

“All done,” Daddy says. He puts her in her wheelchair. He pushes her to the window.

Outside is green. The birds are brown. The red birds are all gone. But there are red flowers. Big red flowers that look like Mommy’s smile when she wears lipstick. And tall blue flowers. And yellow flowers that look like the sun in one of her books. And teeny tiny little blue flowers. under all the big flowers and in other parts of the garden too.

David is in the garden on his knees. He looks up.

Ivy waves. Her back hurts. So does her neck. And so does her head.

David waves back.

Hannah comes across the street. She waves to Ivy in the window too. Ivy waves back.

David and Hannah talk.

Hannah waves bye-bye. Bye-bye is not like hi.

David calls, “Hannah, wait!”

Hannah comes back. David hands her a bunch of the teeny tiny little blue flowers. David likes Hannah.

When Hannah is gone, David looks up at Ivy’s window. He waves.

Ivy waves back. Her head hurts. So does her neck. And so does her back.

‘They were all crafted by very talented writers who know how to sculpt sentences and assemble them into compelling and memorable stories.’

It was worth it to attend, just to hear those words of praise for my efforts. But then I heard these words about the second prize winner:

“The idyllic country setting in this piece was very well conveyed. Even as a city boy, I could easily picture the rolling fields; in fact, I felt like I was there.’

Hmm. My entry was set in the country…

‘This story packs an emotional punch rendered more potent in this writer’s hands. You enter this story effortlessly and don’t realize how invested you are until your heart lurches in final lines. It takes a skilled hand to draw a reader in without them really noticing.’

Oh, how I hoped – I dared hope – Terry’s words were about my story.

‘If you’re a parent, you may read this through different eyes, and feel the climax a little longer.”

Indeed, my story – “Zogler from Levitron” – was Amprosia’s second prize winner! Hurray!

There’s nothing quite like feedback from a writer of Terry Fallis’s stature to send a writer back to work with a renewed sense of energy and purpose. I may just finish this collection by the end of this year! And if not, well, maybe I’ll be entering next year’s Amprosia contest, too.