#380 Inside the Emotion of Fiction THE MYSTIC: BOOK ONE, THE ART OF RIVERS by Dawn Reno Langley, published by Black Rose Writing on May 25, 2025
https://www.blackrosewriting.com/historicaladventure/p/themystic
What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I began writing The Mystic in the 80s. At that time, it was called Jack’s Truck, and I worked with three agents to try to sell it. Over time, the book went from first person to third person, from present tense to past and back to present again, and it’s had at least three very different endings. I’ve hung in with it, because the story was inspired by my sister’s accident at the age of seven. I finished the novel earlier this year, more than twenty years after I started it.
BELOW from left to right: Dawn (standing) with her sister Candy and other sibling; Dawn in the 1980s; and in December 2024.
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. And can you please include a photo? During the first drafts, I lived in the mountains of Vermont. While sitting at my desk, I had a view of my quarter-acre garden and the deer that like to graze in the meadows beyond.
But I must credit the Weymouth Arts and Humanities Center for giving me the space to edit this book, not once but twice in the past five years. I remember spreading the book on the Oriental rug in my room (aptly named the Thomas Wolfe room) and literally measuring my chapters by how tall the piles were. I love that place and all its ghosts, but that’s a story for another day.
BELOW: Dawn in the Thomas Wolfe Room
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I start off my writing with a hot tea, which is often cold before my fingers are warmed up. I fiddle around a bit, answer a few emails, procrastinate for about half an hour, then I dive in.
I like quiet when I write, and it’s near impossible for me to really get into what I’m working on if there’s someone in the house/apartment with me. I do my best work when I’m away from home.
When I’m first sketching out a story, I have files of clippings and notes that are all sorted into categories by the time I start working on the novel. Those piles are always within reach when I’m writing the first draft.
Once I’ve broken ground and the story starts taking shape, I do most of my writing on the laptop. I print the first draft and do all my editing in pen on that draft, then I type the changes into my saved files. I may edit half a dozen times before I release the book to an editor or agent (often, I’ve edited twenty or thirty times…depending upon the comments I receive from readers).
I can’t say that I write only at a particular time of day, but I’d say that mid-morning is commonly the time I start, and I might finish at suppertime, unless I’m on deadline.
Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference. This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer.
The First National Bank’s clock creates a dim orange circle in the distance. I squint as if that will help bring everything into focus, but I don’t see anything more clearly, except there’s now an indistinct form moving warily in the middle of Broadway, about two blocks down the hill.
Someone else is following the yellow line.
As I draw closer, I hear singing. A deep, raspy voice. The voice of someone who has destroyed their throat.
A woman.
A woman dressed in bright colors. Too many colors. Deep-blood red and royal purple. Pastel pink and sun-bright yellow. Layer after layer of skirts and blouses, strange layers of stripes and lacy petticoats, and a wildly flowered hat atop it all. More than one hat.
Still closer, almost creeping now, I know who it is: Connie, the crazy lady. I have seen her many times before and grew up with stories about the woman, how she had once led an everyday life with a husband everyone knew because he delivered the morning eggs and milk. Two handsome sons: big boys with brawny laughs. Connie had been attractive, Daddy once said.
He knew her from before the beginning of the war—before she lost her husband in a messy hunting accident, then her younger son to pneumonia,
and finally, her oldest son on the beach at D-Day. Connie went over the edge when she received that news, and then she was hospitalized. She’s been
in and out ever since. And when she’s out, everyone in Everett knows. She stands, arms akimbo, in front of huge delivery trucks, screams in the faces of
frightened school children, dumps trash cans upside down, and uses both hands to scoop through the trash, pushing handfuls into her dirty mouth.
She causes trouble, but she’s funny, too. The kids get a big kick out of Crazy Connie’s antics. All I feel when I look at her is how much pain she has endured.
Connie doesn’t know I’m there, watching her. Everett’s old crazy lady is dancing. Singing. She is kicking her heels up as if she’s Mrs. Vanderbilt gone
to the ball.
Into the morning mist, her voice carries an unclear melody, the hint of a lullaby in the rusted metal sound. Then, the song comes into focus for me. It has always enticed me to dance: “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me…”
The strength of the mind. Her memory of that song overcomes the pain. The colors Crazy Connie wears blur and melt—streaks of bright sunset colors: pumpkin, saffron, rosy red—as she moves her arms and legs, keeping in the rhythm of her discordant tune. She becomes a strange female version of Joseph in his many-colored coat.
The moment is purely magical. Sometimes in everyone’s life, you can look back years later and remember every blessed detail: what you wore, how
the air smelled, the way the veins ran down the backs of your hands, how it felt for warm blood to flow through your veins, how each swallow of air
slipped into your nostrils and down your throat and filled up your stomach cavity so that it pressed against the waistband of your skirt, how it felt to breathe.
This is one of those times.
I move slowly, opening my pocketbook and lifting out the little sketch pad I’ve been keeping in there for the times I go to the hospital and play with Theresa’s kids. I put one blind hand into the bag and hunt for the pencil, keeping the sketch pad under my arm. I never take my eyes off Connie, who blissfully continues her dance with the elements.
“…anyone else but me…anyone else but me…no, no, no…” she sings, her
voice wobbling as she dances.
I sketch her, following the lines of the ankle-length scarf that Connie has wrapped around her neck, exaggerating the jagged edges of her grayish-orange hair and the thin, stringy strands that flop over her dried and pinched shoulders. As my pencil flies quickly over the paper, I know the contrast of the vibrant woman in the street and the muted city buildings in the background will make a powerful watercolor. Maybe the guy at the gallery can sell it. He seems to like the portraits. Excited, I draw quickly, willing the sky to stay that safe color of the morning before the sun rises and reveals all the world’s truths. If only I could keep drawing. If only I could stay in the middle of the street, watching this woman, free of the world and its problems, safe in my dreamlike realm.
If only I could believe in miracles.
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Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write? And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt?I remember a woman like this from my childhood. As an adult, I think we all had a certain respect for her, even the mean kids who would throw things at Bighead George, another person in town who had a mental disability, didn’t bother Rosie (Connie in my story). I always thought she’d invented a fantasy world for herself, because reality was too painful.
In this scene, not only do I want to pay homage to that woman from long ago, a woman dismissed by most of the city and safe in her own delusions, but I also want to show how my main character, Beth, connects with Connie’s pain. Beth has lost family members herself, and though she doesn’t outright admit it, Connie’s situation is more like her own than anyone else Beth knows.
I also wanted to show Beth coming into her own as an artist, and Connie’s palette is one of the brightest, especially in the midst of a dark, dreary, painful winter.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. Oh, so many deletions and additions and I can’t even begin to tell you how many versions. I used to keep all of the copies, but I don’t anymore. However, I’m going to Virginia over the holidays to work on my new novel, and I just happened to pull the files today. Here’s an example of what I work from when I have a rough draft and need to take it to the next step.
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https://www.dawnrenolangley.net/