I have many thoughts. I think the story has potential and rings true, but the prose could use a good sanding and polish.

@Wolfram Grohnert It's not the threads. I don't mind stories that ask me to connect dots. For me, it was more about sentence-level clarity. For example, this sentence made me smile: "There was a haggard man sitting by the tree, his hat on the floor and smiling at passers-by." Grammatically, that reads as though the hat is smiling. 😄 That's the sort of thing that pulled me out of the story. I also found myself occasionally losing track of where I was in time. At points I wasn't sure whether Vi was still sitting in The Eaves or whether we had fully transitioned into the memory with her Nan. A stronger transition would have helped me stay oriented. One other thing, and this is more of a personal preference than a rule: I found the formatting and visual styling made the excerpt harder for me to read than it needed to be. A simpler presentation would have let me focus entirely on the story. I don't mean any of this harshly. There are some genuinely compelling moments here, especially the scenes with Nan. I just think the prose occasionally gets between the reader and those moments.

@Wolfram Grohnert thanks!

@Dani Rosenblad James thank you! I really like them.

@Dani Rosenblad James That's an easy question to answer. I'm perpetually afraid I'll die before I get these books written. This is what I talked about in my book, In A Little While. I spent most of my life in the Evangelical church, believing that Jesus was coming back any minute and I needed to be "serving the kingdom" and converting people to Christianity. In that worldview, as I understood it, anything that didn't align with that was "sinful". So, writing novels, sharing stories, reading unapproved fiction, and a host of other things, were all considered sinful. Over the last few years, since I crossed the barrier of 50 years old, I'm 100% certain that I have fewer days ahead of me than I have behind. And I've gotten away from the Evangelical mentality and focused on discovering my identity away from the church and the military. For the first time in my life, I fully gave myself permission to embrace my desire to write. Once I did that, it was like I turned up the heat on the pressure cooker. Dozens of books are crammed into my waiting room, anxious to be born. My job is just to get into triage mode and see which ones are most urgent. After this next book, You Are Forgiven, I'll have said all the non-fiction things I wanted to say - for a while anyhow. It'll be time to fully pursue my life-long dream of being a novelist.

@Shirley-Louise Daniels are you familiar with Human Design? I found a great deal of peace about my life when I learned I'm a 3/6 Martyr/Role Model. Basically, it means I spent years 0-30 slamming into the walls of life (check), 30-50 integrating what I learned (check), and from 50 onward mentoring and teaching others what I learned (also, check). To me, this means I don't have to look back and lament wasted time. That's like lamenting first through twelfth grade when you're heading to college. But it also gives me a sense of urgency and something teetering close to a sense of moral obligation to share what I've learned.

Welcome everyone! I think you'll like this group.

@Paul Cole I just needed to figure it out. I had a massive crisis of faith back in 2009 that sent me on a journey of deconstruction and then reconstruction. I learned a lot and most of it was jumbled in my head. Writing helped me gather it all together and organize it. I figure it's better to get it all organized and put out into the world than to live in a jumbled brain. It's also a legacy thing. One of the spiritual practices I developed is learning to deeply love and respect myself across time - every version of me. I spend a lot of time talking to the child version of me sitting in the basement, jealous of his father and stepmother's new baby, and with the version of me on his deathbed, surrounded with those he loves and not much time left. I often ask him what he'd like me to be working on so that he can know he lived a good life. And he 100% of the time asks me to write as many books as I possibly can, eat a lot more turkey hoagies with the banana peppers he likes (shredded lettuce, soft bread, light mayo, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, provolone cheese, no tomato or onion - and made fresh so the bread doesn't get soggy), and get in as much sex with my wife as I can while the plumbing still works.

@Paul Cole yeah, that old me loves his hoagies! Honestly, I've had almost no readership. They're available on Amazon, and Lulu.com. One of them is already an audiobook on my YouTube channel, and this weekend I'm uploading it to an audiobook platform. I'm also finishing the Kindle versions of all my books this weekend. Until now, I mostly just enjoyed writing them. My book, In A Little While might be the most meaningful. With that one, I got an idea for the book on a Sunder evening, and by the following Sunday morning, I had a complete book uploaded to KDP. I've since gone through and done heavy editing and it's much cleaner that that first version. But as far as impact, I have a different mindset about it. I'm a huge believer in the idea that when the reader is ready, the book appears. That's how it's always gone in my life. Like, I didn't read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut until it had been out for like 20 or 30 years, but it still changed my life. I read Stephen King's The Stand 25 years after it was published and it was another pivot point in my life. What I'm trying to say is that, my ideal reader might not even be born yet. Do you know the Dr. Seuss story, Horton Hears a Who? The idea is that an elephant hears a whole civilization down on a spec of dust but no one believes him and so they try to destroy the speck. Horton convinces the mayor of Whoville to have the whole place make as much noise as they possibly can, and everyone does except one small boy hiding in a closet in his home. He doesn't think his voice will matter. But the mayor convinces him, and the boy offers up a small, but convincing "yip", and it's just enough so that the other animals hear it and believe Horton. After that, all the animals join Horton in protecting the dust speck. Here's the thing: in my life, I'd be as content to be mayor, or Horton, or any of the townsfolk, or even that small boy. In other words, if my books reach a massive audience one day and I bring in mattresses full of money and I change the world - that'll be cool. But if they go mostly ignored for a hundred years until one young woman in Bangor finds a dusty copy in a Goodwill and it changes her life - I'd be just as happy with that. Either way, the outcome is none of my business, and I'm busy being the kind of person I am - a writer.