lilysreviews | Questions of Decoherence.... Traci L SlattonGuest Post & Contest

Today, Lily's Reviews welcomes Traci L Slatton, author of The Love of My (Other) Life. Welcome!

(At the end of the post, be sure to check out the contest.)

In The Love of My (Other) Life, physics professor Brian Tennyson builds a device that allows him to travel to parallel worlds. He calls it a 'decoherence device.' He comes to our universe and meets down-on-her-luck artist Tessa Barnum--which is when the fun starts.

The many worlds theory states (loosely speaking) that for every choice, a new universe is born. So every time you faced a fork in the road and took the right hand path, there is a universe where you took the left hand road. There's also a universe in which you turned around and went back the way you came. Which leads me to wonder: if I could hijack Professor Tennyson's device, where would I go, and what would I find?

If I had prevented myself from leaping into some of the gazillion mistakes that I made, would my life still have led me to the victories I've enjoyed since making those original mistakes? Because my life has followed a meandering route to get me from there to here. Some of it was unfortunate, but some of it has been precious, exquisite.

For example, marrying my first husband was a mistake. Big, huge, brain-fart mistake. What was I thinking? Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking. I was young and I was in love and I was going to make it work, despite the significant challenges in our relationship from the outset.

But if I had spared myself the agony of that freakishly awful and oppressive marriage, would I have met my second husband and started writing novels? This second marriage of mine is in no way a perfect union of constant and unending bliss. There have been many times I wanted to leave. In the end, I stay because it's workable. On most matters, this second husband of mine is willing to undertake growth and change and to become the man I need and want.

Best of all, because he's an artist--a classical figurative sculptor (like Michelangelo)--he appreciates the artistic spirit. He gets it about the burning of the creative impulse, how that drives me relentlessly. He accepted me from the beginning as an author. He wasn't surprised when I became one, because, in his mind, I already was a novelist. His vision of me reinforced the vision I had for myself. That vision of myself as a novelist was, and is, my mission in this life. I believe that to be true for every universe.

So if I borrowed Professor Tennyson's decoherence device and travelled to an alternate universe where I hadn't married my regrettable first husband, would I find that I had become something else, and not a novelist? Would my life have brought me around somehow to meet my sculptor, and would I have found the same meaningfulness in it?

I wonder....

Traci L. Slatton

Thank you for stopping by and for the thoughtful post.

Contest: To celebrate the release of The Love of My (Other) Life, there is an E-book giveaway for one lucky commenter on this post. Please leave your first name and the letter of your last initial and an e-mail you can be reached at. A Xanga account is not necessary (alternate ways to leave comments are above the comment box). Contest closes tomorrow, February 19, at Midnight.

CONTEST IS CLOSED!