Is there anything quite as sad as unfinished stories? The bright promise of beginnings, the building strongly up to a climactic . . . nothing there?

I’m sure I’m not the only writer with unfinished stories in her file drawer and on her computer. But today I’m not only talking about literary projects. Because all too often, people’s lives can be unfinished stories, too.

The Unfinished Stories of Too-Early-Ended Lives

My mind leaps to all the young people in the “middle pages” of the local newspaper: teenagers shot at school, killed in accidents, or struck down by illness. Little kids abused, murdered, or killed by stray bullets not even meant for them.

Vibrant adults, still rearing their own kids and moving into greater focus on careers – killed by domestic partners. Maybe they’re celebrating a friend’s birthday at an unlucky nightclub the one time someone with a grudge does a drive-by. Or maybe they go to a Chiefs rally and a beef between strangers leaves them dead. All those things have happened in my town recently.

But unfinished stories can happen to older people, too. When we have access to good health care, we often launch second careers post-retirement. We might travel the world. Even if we stay closer to home, we might become indispensable to our families as we help rear our grandkids or care for ailing others. Or we might work with our religious institutions as volunteers, or take up an art form that “wasn’t practical” when we were younger. Anyone whose story is truncated at such a moment is left with the rest of the pages unwritten.

Yes, I’m Thinking of my Sister

People who’ve followed my social media know that my only sister, Gigi Sherrell Norwood, died this past Sept. 3, 2024. She was the “other Weird Sister” of Weird Sisters Publishing. That morning a police officer visited me to deliver the news.

As “unfinished stories” go, hers is both sad and frustrating. Her followers on social media, this blog, and in the Dallas, Texas arts community probably know that she was a longtime staffer for The Dallas Winds. She had a long career in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, writing for museums and arts organizations, including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts before she joined the wind band.

What fewer people know is that she was set to retire last July 31. She’d been looking forward to a chance to spend more time working on her fiction projects. She also planned to resume making art quilts. And we both expected she’d become active with Weird Sisters Publishing’s efforts to create audiobooks. We were hoping her retirement would open a stimulating new chapter for her.

The Unfinished Publishing Stories of G. S. Norwood

She had several unfinished literary stories that she was really looking forward to finishing. First, there were her “failed romances” from the 1990s, when husband Warren C. Norwood took over the “breadwinning” role as a technical writer. He encouraged her to take several years attempting to get her own fiction published.

I had them pegged from the beginning as what’s called “women’s fiction,” because they were full-bodied novels with a romantic storyline that often wasn’t the whole theme. But she targeted the romance genre first. A major percentage of the reading public was buying those books, so it seemed a likelier bet. But her stories were repeatedly rejected as “this is very good, but it’s not for us.” She kept writing them (I counted seven that I believe are from this era), and editors kept rejecting them. They didn’t hit the right tropes the right way, and they had too many plotlines.

The writing of those stories was finished, but they’ve never been published. When we created Weird Sisters Publishing, one of our objectives was to at last bring them out into the world. But she had become a better writer in 20 years, and she wanted to review and update them. Only one, Wrong Way Riley, actually was close to publication. We even commissioned a cover painting for it, by Diana Vargas-Sampieri “Dianita,” with which we both were quite pleased. That one, at least, probably will still be published.

The Unfinished Mysteries of G. S. Norwood

Fans of the Deep Ellum Stories (at least those are published!) have been waiting since 2020 for her promised Death in Deep Ellum. It’s a mystery set in Ms. Eddy’s territory, featuring a contrary detective and a concerning incursion by a malevolent spiritual force. She talked about it frequently. She was only a few chapters into the actual first draft, but it was at the top of her post-retirement list.

A close second was a contemporary mystery that turns the traditional cozy on its head. She found the conceit of cozies irritating. The idea that an amateur civilian could consistently succeed where a trained investigator proved ineffective seemed rather far-fetched. Yes, that’s part of the appeal, but she had worked with cops (both in Springfield, MO and Weatherford, TX) for far too long to enjoy seeing them shown up as bumbling fools or worse in cozies.

So she concocted a different kind of civilian investigator – a retired small-town police chief, recently widowed and at loose ends. Having gone through widowhood herself, there were a number of themes she wanted to tie in. Ray and Sunshine sounded absolutely wonderful as she described her vision to me. And it was supposed to be the first in what we hoped would be a fun series. But she only made it to Chapter 24 of a planned 27. Now they’re forever-unfinished stories.

My Sister’s Personal Unfinished Story

For me, the most upsetting of her unfinished stories is that of Gigi herself. The week before she retired, she broke both ankles in a freakish accident. By five weeks into her recovery, she was keeping her spirits up. Next goal: looking forward to being able to put limited weight on the less-badly-injured ankle (one’s summits depend on one’s circumstances).

And she was particularly looking forward to being able to more easily access her computer. It’s a desktop, or everything would’ve been easier on that score. We don’t know for sure why she died when she did. Before the accident she’d been relatively healthy and eager to start lots of new creative projects. She had a growing audience, looking forward to reading all those unfinished stories.

But no one was looking forward to reading them – and watching the rest of her exciting personal story unfold – more eagerly than me.

About the Author

Author Jan S. Gephardt is still at the bottom of a mountain of urgent new things to do in the wake of Gigi’s death. Meanwhile, her novel Bone of Contention is set for wide publication next week (September 24, 2024). The book completes the XK9 “Bones” Trilogy, but (unless yet more unfortunate things happen!), it is not planned to be the end of the XK9s’ story. Rex and the rest of the Pack are set for new adventures in the already-started Bones for the Children.

IMAGE CREDITS

Many thanks to N. R. Hart for both the poem and the imagery for the first illustration. They are © by N. R. Hart.

The “G. S. Norwood, Author” portrait features Gigi in her cloak with a wizard’s staff and her blonde/red Border Collie, Kata (Gigi’s muse for the dog in Ray and Sunshine) with a backdrop of signs and architecture from Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas. It is a digital painting ©2020 by Chaz Kemp.

The fourth illustration combines all three “Deep Ellum” covers into one promotional image created for social media. The three covers are all © by Chaz Kemp. The third illustration features the cover art for Gigi’s book Wrong Way Riley, ©2024 by Diana Vargas-Sampieri “Dianita.”

The final illustration presents a quote-image from Picturequotes.com and a quotation from Salman Rushdie. Despite all of her unfinished stories, I sincerely hope that Gigi will not, in fact, come back to haunt me.