Guest Author Kharis A. Macey

Eighteen Years of Doubt, Lack, Sacrifice, Trauma, and Optimism . . .

The Joys and Pains of Writing UPON HIS DEATH BED and the Entire

12-Novel Serial of The Front House Jumbies

By Kharis Macey

I began constructing this series over eighteen years ago for my children born in the United States of America, as a key to my heritage and hence, their roots. Since that time, I’ve received many rejections, many write overs and many more rejections. This was supposed to be a novel of Part 1 and Part 2, Upon His Death Bed and In the End. However, after the tenth rejection, I decided to split it even further and came up with four parts.

Again rejected, I changed it into eight parts, after which I handed over a thousand dollars to a woman who claimed she, “could get this novel published as it.” I then waited over a year while paying more money for this to happen, and only found out she was lying after I corned her and she had no other choice but to admit there was no publisher and her company was not in a position to publish my novel serial.

Most of the excuses I received were written in this mode, “Good concept but America would never want to read about the troubles of a foreign country or its people.” Swallowing my pride, I rejected this and kept my eyes on the prize: Publication at any cost. It was over four years ago when I decided to move on, realizing and accepting that the only way I’d see the publication of The Front House Jumbies Serial was to publish it myself.

More money was needed and so I began working full time at a nursing home. Now I had two jobs, full time and part time at an agency. When I returned home, I barely had energy to remove my clothes, put them in the special bag I placed all the clothes and shoes I had worn to work, grab the towel I had laid out before leaving, and head into the shower. During that time, all I did was work, sleep, eat and work.

Eventually, I came to the realization I was not going to fill the position I was promised at the nursing home. I hung around, but knew within my heart, it was a matter of time before I left for greener pastures and more money. Finally things came to a head on the morning I was unable to read the medication book and the labels on the medication bottles. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t differentiate the bottle of baby aspirin from the adult bottle.

Honestly, it seemed as if someone had placed their hands or a blindfold over my eyes to purposefully prevent me from seeing anything. This temporary blindness became the sign I didn’t even know I was waiting on, and which allowed me to leave that particular nursing facility on that peculiar or psychic morning. I returned home immediately and as with every rejection since I began sending out manuscripts of The Front House Jumbies Serial, I started working on it again.

To Be Continued …

Biography

KHARIS (Macey) JORDAN 01

I was born in British Guiana, now Guyana and which translates to mean, Land of Many Waters. One of many children, I realized I was born to write at an early age. At the age of ten, I wrote my first play about the old woman who lived beneath our home and who cooked with a coal pot, her name was Mamma Lattie.

It was meant to be a comedy about the many intricacies of her character and which I observed while sitting in a rocking chair and looking at her for many hours. One day I returned home from school and was told Mamma Lattie had died. I could not return to my rocking chair for many months, even though I read and reread the play whenever I’d think about her and her coal pot.

UHDB