The Flog – The Fabry Log

What is your secret?

We all have one. We all have something buried on the top of some hill of the past. Our great hope is that the secret will stay buried. Unseen. Dormant.

A secret unsettles us. There is no grave marker for the secret because we do not wish to remember. We want to forget.

The reason there is no stone above the buried secret is because we do not need one. We remember too well.

But what if the secret of your life is there not to haunt or shackle, but to redeem? What if the secret, buried deep, is the path to freedom? And what if the key to living an abundant life, the key to unlocking the door to your heart to redemption and reunion and a peace you have never known, lies in revealing the secret?

This is one of the big questions in the novel I've written—and this is release month, which doesn't mean much to anyone but the author and the publisher and a few friends who care. There's a lot going on in the world and a book about two little girls in a coal town in West Virginia in the 1930s, and then an old woman with a secret in 2004—well, trust me, it's an uphill battle to get something like that seen or noticed. A lot of other news is making a bigger splash.

But here's what I've come to understand after writing dozens of stories. Under a Cloudless Sky is my 80th published book, and I could not be more convinced of the power of a story than I am right now. Because a story well-told can get underneath the surface of your life and burrow so deeply that it can, at the same time, show you yourself and show you the path to real life.

My Secret

I've never done this. I've never had such a compulsion about a character as I had with Juniper and Hollis Beasley. They are "minor" characters in the novel, at least they were supposed to be. But the more I wrote about them, the more they took over the story. And as I wrote them, they became more defined, and I saw two Hollywood actors in my head playing them.

I've done this through the years, find a face, find a person who looks like a character in my novel and allow their smiles or frowns or voice to aid me. But this was different. I could see and hear them on the screen of my novel. And as much as I tried, I couldn't push their faces and voices from the dialog and narrative.

I mentioned to Karen, my publishing confidant (or editor, if you prefer), and she said, "Why don't you send the novel to one of the actors?"

So I did. Again, it was an act of hubris on my part to think that something I had written would even be seen by an A-list actor. But I found an address and mailed it. I've received no response yet, but that's not the point. If you don't believe in your story, you'll never risk. And if you don't believe in the power of your story, you'll never become vulnerable to that story. And if you allow the secret of your life to shackle you, you will never move past the fear and into a life of trust and belief.

I would love to hear who you think would play the parts of Hollis and Juniper best. I hope you pick up a copy of this story that's very close to my heart for a number of reasons.