Her Story: Ladies In Literature is a special, month-long series on Pop! Goes The Reader in which we celebrate the literary female role models whose stories have inspired and empowered us since time immemorial. From Harriet M. Welsch to Anne Shirley, Becky Bloomwood to Hermione Granger, Her Story: Ladies In Literature is a series created for women, by women as thirty-three authors answer the question: “Who’s your heroine?” You can find a complete list of the participants and their scheduled guest post dates Here!
About Danika Stone
Danika Stone is an author, artist, and educator who discovered a passion for writing fiction while in the throes of her Masters thesis. A self-declared bibliophile, Danika now writes novels for both teens (All The Feels and Internet Famous) adults (Edge Of Wild and Intaglio). When not writing, Danika can be found hiking in the Rockies, planning grand adventures, and spending far too much time online. She lives with her husband, three sons, and a houseful of imaginary characters in a windy corner of Alberta, Canada. Ms. Stone is represented by Morty Mint of Mint Literary Agency.
I’ve been a writer for as long as I can remember, but there was one period in my life when I could not write at all. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but when I was home with a newborn, I could not focus. What I lacked in writing ability, however, I made up for in reading.
A book could be set aside at any moment. They gave me permission to escape even while I was tethered to one place, and one particular novel from that newborn-era stayed with me: The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.
I picked it up from the library long after the book’s heyday. The hardcover had made it through hundreds of hands; its dustcover had been repaired with tape. My only plan was to read it before I saw the film. It would be a fun read while I sat awake for yet another 2:00a.m. feeding.
Instead, I was transported.
You see, Clare’s journey toward motherhood was unsettlingly close to my own. I’d had difficulty becoming and staying pregnant, a taboo topic with even my closest friends. Like Clare, my husband and I had the awful experience of a second trimester loss and felt the grief and isolation that wraps you when you ache so desperately for something everyone else seems to have. There were particular moments in The Time Traveler’s Wife which struck me with such painful honesty that I felt the author’d taken those moments directly from my life.
The guilt of looking at baby clothes. The fights with her husband, Henry. Clare’s certainty that if they tried just one more time, it might happen. Loss after loss after loss…
Clare Abshire’s life, of course, was wrapped in a deeper sorrow: losing her husband Henry. And it was through the two parts of her story that, earlier this year, I found a path through my darkest days.
In The Time Traveler’s Wife, Clare has no control over Henry’s arrivals or departures. She knows he’s going to disappear from her life at some point but neither of them can say when or how. Last year, my eldest – the same newborn I’d held in my arms while I read Clare’s story the first time – became deathly ill and required brain surgery. Living in the Children’s Hospital for weeks at a time was oddly similar to those first anxious days of motherhood. Time lost meaning as I paced the halls at 2:00a.m., shared whispered reports to my husband via phone, or held my son in my arms as he fell back to sleep.
I thought often of Clare then.
You see, one part of Clare’s journey in The Time Traveler’s Wife is learning that all things have a beginning and an end, and though we may not be able to control them, we can live despite them. As my husband and I passed through the worst hours – waiting through our son’s five hour brain surgery – I realized that, in some ways, we are all time travellers, living either in the past that we can no longer change, or the future, which we cannot control. My goal then, was to be Clare: to exist only in the here and now.
I lived through the awful uncertainty of my son’s surgery, and the long, tiring days of his recovery with Clare’s patience in mind. I tried to focus on the individual moment’s at hand. My son was alive. He was breathing. He was in pain – yes – but the medical team could control it. And then, little by little, I could see small improvements. My son could sit up again. He could stay awake for longer than an hour. He could drink without help. He could stand.
Each moment was a tiny flash in a lifetime of hope. I chose – like Clare Abshire – to take strength and live those moments, rather than imagine some time in the future where he would be whole again. A single day after a day, after a day…And in this way I survived.
Time travel with me forward six months.
My son is healthy and well, his brain healed and his body recovered. People tell me it’s a miracle, and I assure them that he’s always been a miracle to me. Today, as I write this post about Clare Abshire, a fictional character who helped me survive the hellish last year, my son is outside in the backyard, playing and laughing with my husband. The scar is hidden under a crop of dark hair. To those who don’t know him, it seems like nothing ever happened. I’m living that wished-for future I’ve been waiting for, and it’s happening now.
Like Clare, that ‘now’ is enough.
Title Internet Famous
Author Danika Stone
Pages 320 Pages
Intended Target Audience Young Adult
Genre & Keywords Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
Published June 6th, 2017 by Swoon Reads
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon.com ● Chapters ● The Book Depository
Internet sensation Madison Nakama has it all! Her pop-culture rewatch site has a massive following, and fans across the world wait on her every post and tweet. And now Laurent, a fellow geek (and unfairly HOT French exchange student!), has started flirting with her in the comments section of her blog. But Laurent’s not the only one watching for Madi’s replies…
Internet fame has a price, and their online romance sparks the unwanted attention of a troll. When Madi’s “real life” hits a rough patch, she feels her whole world crumbling. With Laurent’s support, can Madi rally her friends across the globe to beat the troll, or will he succeed in driving her away from everything — and everyone — she loves?
3 Responses
*hugs*
And maybe I’ll finally read “The Tie Travelers Wife”
I hope so, Kate. It’s one of my favorite books and it does so much that I WISH my writing did. <3
Those are the best books. *swoon*