Breaking the Rules
LENORE MYKA is the author of King of the Gypsies: Stories (BkMk Press, 2015). She is a recipient of a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, and her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New England Review, the Iowa Review, the Massachusetts Review, and Quartz.
I WAVED the white flag, surrendering. The novel I had developed a relationship with—had spent time and resources and emotional energy on—had built a fortress around itself, locking me out. It did not want me. But more to the point, I did not want it. We were through.
As in any dysfunctional relationship, it had taken me a long time to get to this point. Six years, to be exact. Four different drafts, a total of more than a thousand pages, which did not include the dozens of index cards, the journals and notebooks filled with ideas and research and mind-maps; the hundreds of dollars spent on out-of-print books and DVDs and even a poster featuring a reprint from an obscure artist that I bought to inspire me; the weekends and early-morning hours and an entire month off from paid work, all taken in service of the novel that had now become “my ex.”
How had I ended up here?
This particular question is easy for me to answer. I’m a good girl, a good student. I can honestly say that in the forty-six years of my life I’ve never missed a deadline, never asked for an extension. I like and follow rules. I’ve been called hardworking, studious, disciplined, determined. I’d also add impressionable to that list.
