Dearest DIXIANA

As Dixiana’s “ebook episodes” roll out on the Kindle platform, this charming love letter from the spring of 2015 felt worth a re-post.

With so much having changed in my life since then, including multiple edits of the saga and much growth of the text—enough to warrant publication of the former ‘parts’ as standalone novel-length ebooks—rereading this post brought a certain mist to my eyes. At this point I had no idea of the ordeal ahead with my mother, nor the flooding in Columbia, SC, nor any of the drama I’d endure in the course of finishing and publishing four additional pre-Dixiana titles through my Mind Harvest Press imprint.

On the brighter side, I also didn’t know Dixiana (the first “omnibus” book, meaning, parts 1-3) would bubble up as a Faulkner-Wisdom finalist. A nice honor, and a dose of validation every artist needs to keep on with the process.

Short version? A long road. Many bumps. And with six more months of intensive work to proof the next six ebooks into distribution shape, not to mention the omnibus print editions that will come out in between the ebook releases, the road goes on.

Not forever—this time next year, the entire novel series will be available to readers. And then, only then, will I move on from this life’s-work literary project of mine.

[first published in May 2015]

Two Five years ago, DIXIANA, you were but a gleam in my eye. Out of reach for so long, yet here now I find that you exist. You are one of the great loves of my life. In the room with me. Corporeal. I can touch you. How we began seems like only yesterday. Now, my imagination strives to remember what it felt like to not know you. Weird.

I thought about you so long before you were real, though, I worried you might never arrive. It’s like this bit of Rilke I like:

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don’t even know what songs
would please you.

I made that the epigraph of one of the parts of the first novel, since songs are so important to the characters inside your pages. [Note: epigraph since changed]

For so long you were lost to me, DIXIANA, that I believed I could not find you. I knew you were there, but it seemed you would not reveal yourself to me. Not yet, anyway. I didn’t realize you were only biding your time. I was naive. I thought I could make you appear at will. Nope. It’s a two-way street. Two to tango. Et cetera.

What’s that? Oh, yes—what we now call DIXIANA is only the first novel. While you were so busy being born, you turned into triplets! You had so much to say, and I had so much I wanted you to say, that when your beloved characters came alive they made the journey a more complicated traverse than I had at first envisioned.

This attempt at the GAN (Great American Novel), about a South Carolina county like the one in which I grew up (as well as plenty of others in my home state), turned into more of a treatise and examination of much broader topics than a mere Southern literary comedy-drama about a prodigal son returning home and trying, in his psychically wounded and misguided way, to reshape the reality of all those around him.

What he must learn, I discovered, is that reality is shaped first on the inside, and in some ways that might be the only place such effort truly matters. This message came to me and through me, somehow. The eleven other major characters go through similar journeys, but only some of them will find their way to a place of redemption and understanding. Maybe the protagonist doesn’t quite make it, either. Don’t want to spoil anything.

But of course, you, DIXIANA, already know the answer to the question of your ultimate resolution. You know how it comes out—who lives, who dies, who finds redemption, and which characters still have much growth and mastery left to accomplish. You may not know the answers to all of your literary riddles, but then, neither does your author. Much esoteric knowledge and experience came my way over the last two years, and much of it made its way into you, but the truest nature of these alchemical secrets must be kept and held with closeness and intimacy. Even from a fellow initiate like you.53

Were that possible. Ha. I’ve no secrets from you, and you have none from me. Not anymore. We are both keepers of the key. In our own way.

So, dearest, as what we call our two-year Composition Phase five-year editorial phase draws to a close, let me reiterate how much I love you, this deep and abiding love of being alive I integrated into your pages. Every time I read you, I feel that love and effort projected back to me, a circular symmetry that has fed and nurtured my soul in a way few other activities have in my soon-to-be 50 53 years here on the spinning rock.

Thank you, DIXIANA. Thank you for being you, and for waiting to come into my life at just the right moment, at the time when I needed you the most. You have completed me. And one day, you, too, will also be complete. If you feel that way already, I don’t blame you. But many people in the world who don’t understand a relationship like ours may not believe that you are real until somebody prints you and money-energy begins to flow, but I can tell you today they are mistaken. The validation you require has already occurred. Anything beyond these feelings of accomplishment and satiation will serve as gravy on the biscuit that we’ve baked together.

While much remains to be done in terms of moving this writing career forward, the best and most fulfilling part—the creating—has drawn to a close for you, beloved DIXIANA. You have been my best friend and closest intimate, in a way, for two years now. Saying goodbye to this role—or perhaps only farewell—leaves me grieving and confused, both necessary aspects of the act of attaining closure. I know you will come back around to me, and that you will again need my attention and intimacy, but as with your gestation, only when you are ready, dear. Until then I will wait for you, even if you never arrive. Wait, that’s not possible—you’re already here. Phew.

Yours,

-dmac