So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

by Darlene Ryan
aka Sofie Kelly and Sofie Ryan
 


I was going to begin by saying that everyone dislikes goodbyes, and then I remembered one of my mother’s friends, who always said she didn’t mind goodbye because it just put her a little closer to hello again. This is my second goodbye to Poe’s Deadly Daughters. The first time, I knew the blog was going to continue. I knew I could drop by. I knew that I was just a few cyber-steps from hello again. This time however, it really is so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.

My first post on Poe’s Deadly Daughters was as a guest in January of 2007, seven years ago. It feels a lot longer than that. Later, I became a weekend regular on the blog. I almost said no to that invitation. I was a Young Adult author, intimidated about being in the company of women who were more accomplished in a genre that I used to joke I couldn’t break into with a crowbar. But I swallowed down those fears long enough to say yes. And quickly discovered that I had found my tribe. I wasn’t just surrounded—figuratively if not literally—by five women who were doing what I aspired to do—publish a mystery novel. I had been embraced by five women who were happy to share what they knew, and to encourage me not to give up on my dreams.

In 2007, I had five books to my credit, but my first mystery wouldn’t be published for four more years. Now I have thirteen published books, with two more coming out later this year. That’s close to 700,000 published words and even more written and discarded. Back then the only name I wrote under was my own. Now I’m Darlene Ryan, Sofie Kelly and Sofie Ryan. (The Sofies have better hair than I do.) Sofie Kelly has made it into the top ten of the New York Times paperback bestseller list. That was a dream I would never have shared with anyone back in 2007 because it seemed so farfetched.

Seven years ago, I was the mother of a nine-year-old with a mouth full of braces. Today I’m the mother of a beautiful sixteen-year-old with straight, white teeth. Her orthodontist has gone to Vegas five times in the past seven years. I’m pretty sure I know who paid for those trips.

Four days before my first Poe’s post, my smart-beyond-his-years great-nephew was born. He’s either going to grow up to be the next Bill Gates or a real-life Iron Man. Any day now he’ll become a big brother for the first time: a joyous hello. Sadly, his great grandmother—my mother—who was so delighted by his birth, can’t remember that a new baby is going to join the family. Alzheimer’s Disease takes away another little piece of her each day in a long, slow goodbye.

There is a quote, often attributed to Chaucer, that reads, “There is an end to everything. Good things as well.” Poe’s Deadly Daughters is one of those good things. Thank you to the original daughters, Sandy, Liz, Julia, Lonnie and Sharon for letting me be a small part of what you created here. I hope this ending just puts us that much closer to hello again.

This is My Tribe

by Sofie Kelly (aka Darlene Ryan)
Author of the Magical Cats Mysteries

Writers work alone. We create worlds. We kill. We make love spark and desire simmer. We live, much of the time, in a make-believe world with people who don’t exist outside of our heads and our laptops, and the real people in our lives shake their heads and wonder if we’re deluded. Or delusional.

But for the last week I’ve been taking an online writing workshop, and I’ve been surrounded by a community that doesn’t think it’s odd to talk out loud about imaginary people. Or to them. No one asks, “Why don’t you write something like Twilight?” 

Several years ago I sat with another group of writers and heard poet and novelist Sue Goyette say, “We are your tribe. We understand.”

I have found my tribe again in an electronic gathering of like-minded people. In our online class we get giddy over a plot twist or a well-crafted paragraph. We throw ideas at one another, posts crossing in the ether until a suggestion becomes a few words from one person, a few from someone else. “Turn the princess into a vampire witch on a quest to find Elvis in the lost city of Atlantis.”

“Send me your address, I found that book we were talking about yesterday,” someone emails. No one ever complains, “Mom, we have no toilet paper again.”

Writers write and when we aren’t writing, some part of us is always watching, always plotting, no matter what’s happening to us or around us. No matter how sad, how silly, how bizarre, a little voice in our heads is thinking, How can I use this? We are crows. We see shiny pieces of other people’s lives and we reach for them. In our real lives we hear, “Don’t put this in a book.” In class a dozen people type, “You have to write about this.”

This is my tribe. People who sit too long at stop signs searching for the right words to describe a sliver of crescent moon that seems to be teetering on a roof edge. People who fall on a patch of sidewalk ice and ask the paramedic for a pencil and a piece of paper to scribble down the sensations.

In the real world this past week, dust bunnies have met, courted and spawned babies. In the real world there are enough crumbs under the kitchen table to make a sandwich. And in a few more days we’ll be ready to go back to the real world, to hunt down the dust bunnies and sweep up the crumbs. We’re part of the tribe now and we’ll take that sense of community, of encouragement back to the real world. Because the real world is where all the stories begin. Stories about love, hate, despair and what really happened to a dozen double rolls of toilet paper.

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Sofie Kelly is the pseudonym of young adult writer and mixed-media artist, Darlene Ryan. Her first Magical Cats Mystery, Curiosity Thrilled the Cat, landed on the N.Y. Times bestseller list. Sofie/Darlene lives on the east coast with her husband and daughter. In her spare time she practices Wu style tai chi and likes to prowl around thrift stores. And she admits to having a small crush on Matt Lauer. Visit her website at www.sofiekelly.com.