How and why I wrote Just Another Sunday.

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My coming-of-age, family drama, Just Another Sunday: A Novel, was borne out of a need to address key events in my life as a teenager and young adult. You know the routine, don’t you? Someone from your past searches for you on Classmates.com or Facebook, and voila—they find you. You and he then reconnect, reminisce and then you wonder--what happened all those years ago, and ponder the question : How did we get to where we are today?

 

Then he tells you his version of past history.

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Well, those memory-jolting, jaw-dropping revelations caused me to get out of bed in the middle of the night and purge his version of  old events on my computer. It was the rudimentary beginnings of Chapter Seven -- The Pig -- that I wrote on that early morning in 2007, and became the moment of conception for Just Another Sunday, which took a total of five years to complete since it sat dormant in my laptop for months on end.  Sometimes it became too close for comfort.  So, it was easier distancing myself as a neutral observer in a novel rather than write a first person fictional memoir.

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I dug out old photos, journals and other memories and pieced together key events. And finally, when I realized this book had to be about my family, I focused on the most pivotal event of my life, deciding that Lia’s story was much larger than simply reminiscing teenage growing pains in an otherwise ordinary life.  I swear there was a force driving me to tell this story and not keep it to myself. 

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Chapter 19 was especially difficult to re-visit. I recall that day from my perspective and no one else's. And to this day, I don’t fully know my family’s individual accounts or their whereabouts, only my own.

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One day while I was visiting my mother I came across an old cassette tape with my brother’s handwriting on it. It was on a shelf in her living room. I didn’t think it was playable since the tape looked worn enough to break. I asked her how long she had it sitting there. She didn’t remember. I asked to take it home with me. Well, I could not wait another minute, so I put it in my car’s cassette player hoping the tape wouldn’t snap.

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It played just fine, although the audio was terrible. I had to stop the car to cry my eyes out and call my sister to tell her what I had found. It was meant to be that I found the tape at that particular moment in time. I visit my mother every week, and never have I seen it until that day. It was not a coincidence. I was meant to incorporate the contents of that audio tape, and hence Chapter 18 was borne.  Some may say it is an unnecessary, long-winded, useless, chapter.  But, it was important for me to use it almost verbatim.  And I don't apologize for it.

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Chapter 19 was written long before I found the tape. The impact of Chapter 19 is re-enforced by that audio treasure. I have since had it restored to a CD and sent copies to my relatives.

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This story is a fictional account of 5 years long buried away by choice. Many events have taken place, however, I have embellished where necessary, rearranging a few to fit within those years for the sake of length, otherwise this book would be 1000 pages. Some conversations represent composites of those that may have taken place.

 

I believe the final chapter will cause a reaction. The last scene with Jesse was one of those revelations I could not wrap my head around. It blew me away to hear and think about it again some 34 years later. Hindsight is always 20/20. I now know what I didn’t know then, and was able to tell it the way it was revealed to me.

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Just Another Sunday may inspire teenagers to think about their choices and how they will affect their future life. I know many young people who wish they lived during those decades, just for the fabulous music!   Just Another Sunday and Trampled Underfoot will take you there. 

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Men and women of all ages will ponder decisions they have made in their own lives as they take a trip down the 60s and 70s memory lane.  This story, even though it takes place decades before,  is relevant today, as are the subtle messages and lessons that you may encounter and identify with: whether it be a situation, a particular character or perhaps just a line or two.

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Every move we've made, every situation we're in, every decision we make, big or small, good or bad, impacts our lives in some way, shape or form, altering the paths we take in life, while taking into consideration our inherent personality traits/tendencies, place in time and circumstance.  And ultimately, we face the never-ending questions of whether our destiny in Life is decided by our own free will choices - or by the guiding hand of God Almighty - or ​is it simply predetermined by Fate.

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There is more to the story after Just Another Sunday.​ So pick up your copy of Trampled Underfoot, the conclusion of this two-book series.

 

Thank you,  

Elizabeth Good

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