Lessons I Learned from Posey

“So is this just a story about a pony who got lucky?” my editor asked as we were working on Posey’s Problem.
“Maybe,” was my answer.  I really didn’t know.

 I wrote the first draft the day after I met Posey. By the time I finished it I was sobbing.
My daughter called. I tried to pull myself together when I answered the phone. “Mom, are you okay? Did somebody die?”
“I’m fine. I just finished a manuscript and it made me very emotional.”
“You have to stop writing stories that will make people cry.”
“People won’t cry. I was just in a very deep place.”

Spoiler Alert: adults do cry, kids don’t.

I wanted Posey’s Problem to be a tribute to those wonderful champion ponies that go from rider to rider. They get bounced from home to home, rider to rider, trainer to trainer which takes an emotional toll on the pony, but they still continue to give it their all.

My editor gave me the all clear. The manuscript was finished. It was time for the art, but I couldn’t let it go. Something was missing. It didn’t have a message like Jump the Moon. I felt like Jump the Moon was such a powerful story. I didn’t want to write a second book just so I could say I wrote a second book.

I prayed about it. I thought about it. I read it over and over. What was missing? I was sitting at a traffic light asking God for an answer. Then I realized. It was about Posey’s heart. Her heart broke every time. She left a piece of her heart behind. I went home and changed the manuscript to the one you see today. I thought my editor would kill me, but she loved it. The manuscript was finished. It went to the illustrator.

I think about my English classes growing up. I always hated analyzing stories to see what the author was trying to say, looking for hidden themes. In the case of Posey, what I needed to be asking was: What is Posey trying to teach me? To me it was still a story about how ponies feel.

At a vendor fair a woman bought a copy of Posey’s Problem. She came back the next day and bought another copy. She had a niece whose parents were getting divorced. After reading Posey’s story she thought the book might help her niece deal with the changes in her life.  A third-grade teacher told me she used it in her class to talk about navigating change. Now people were telling me what my book was about!

Posey started speaking to me. She was bringing to mind the people who were part of my life at one time, but who weren’t part of my life now: friends who moved away, people I rode horses with, people I once worked with, people who now go to a different church. Posey reminds me now of all the people who have played an important part in my life for a day or a season, people who I am connected to at the heart. They still hold a piece of my heart and I hold a piece of theirs. Thinking of them makes me smile and it makes my heart feel full. I hope they feel the same when they think of me.

Posey is a real pony, but in Posey’s Problem she is also a metaphor. She represents all the people who walked alongside us in life. Posey makes me feel grateful for all those people that I have collected in my heart along the way, including the ones I have never met, but are touched by my stories. If you are one of them, I am forever grateful.

May your heart always be full,
Kathy Simmers