I have a question, Ansuya. Your story of surviving a painful illness that prevented you from participating at your fullest in your young life - how did this end? At what time were you freed? What did you do? Indeed, what changes did your trauma make that arc through your present life.
I was surrounded by family suicides before I was 30, a…
I have a question, Ansuya. Your story of surviving a painful illness that prevented you from participating at your fullest in your young life - how did this end? At what time were you freed? What did you do? Indeed, what changes did your trauma make that arc through your present life.
I was surrounded by family suicides before I was 30, and they took all the life out of me. I had one child, whose father was dead, and a second, whose father was dangerous. My parents both died by suicide. At the end of a couple of decades of struggle, what did I have? What can I give a character if that character is not me? I have to decide - or invent - what I was left with, or there is not book. Is your story similar, or do you know what you were left with? What from your illness has fed the successes in your life? I'm having trouble finding successes. I survived - that seems lame! What are you doing, I think is what I'm asking, with the events of your past that were so traumatic?
first of all, I'm so sorry to hear this. Thank you so much, for sharing this.It means more to me then I can say, to be honest. I can answer your question but it's not a cheerful story of success -anything but. If you want to hear my story, which -and this is no surprise- is a very long one, & I don't know if this is the appropriate place to write about that stuff here, but, well, I was a very very anxious child to begin with. I didn't get the attention from my parents, or what my therapist calls 'save environment' that was needed, got bullied a lot at school. In high school I finally made friends, but I had a tendency to depression and yes, suicidal thoughts. That's why my friends didn't want to 'hang' with me anymore. This was when I decided to improve myself, by starving myself. Then, from my 14th till my 17th year I've been hospitalized, at the worst kind of places, where there is a lot of 'forced eating', you know, ehm, with a tube.
So my trauma really has to do with this experience of being held by grown-ups, against my will, being forced and punished, etc etc.
Afterwords I never told anyone about this, for years. But at some point, in college, I got severe panic attacks, got very depressed, started to lose weight again. At some point I wasn't able to go outside anymore. This is still the case today. The last time I've been outside, was in 2015.
Since then I lived inside, and so I started to write things down. Also, I got addicted to oxazepam, a sort of valium. I'm getting off those right now, which is the hardest thing I've ever done. Well, almost the hardest thing. My mother and I are no longer in touch, she's always seen me as 'someone who attracts evil spirits,' she's very spiritual and to her view my illness as a teenager and problems later on, are things I created myself, under the influence of evil ghosts and so on (you can imagine tis scared the shit out of me when I was a kid) but my father supports me, and I have some amazing friends left.
I also got diagnosed with ADHD recently, which kind of explains the trouble with my book as well. I also worry a lot about when it gets published, I mean, I want to be there, right at that moment, physically. And I'm sad and afraid that I'll never be in a relationship or have any children of my own. So that's my story. So no, there's happy ending so far. But lately, I've started taking very small steps. I don't know where they will lead. I started seeing old friends. I wrote this letter. Some achievements for me. I'm writing this, here, right now. It sounds like nothing but its a huge achievement for me.
I wish I could help you. If you just want to talk about your experiences and your writing, please email me at ansuyaspreksel@gmail.com
I am a great listener. And I find great comfort as well in talking to people who struggle, like me.
In addition to this, Sallie: my book means everything to me. It's the reason I'm still around. I know this sounds mad, but it's true. This book kept me going, hoping for a better future. And, well, having a very enthusiastic publisher and encouraging publishing team and supportive friends helps a lot. So, at least I can say this: I'm left here, with my book. It's all I have to offer atm. I don't know if it will be enough, but it's enough right now. I really hope this counts for you too. Writing, and reading as well, gives me so much joy. I'm not sure if this is the answer you where looking for, though.
If, with 'what am I left with', you meant, 'what have I gained by going through all this?' Then my answer would be: a story. A story of survival. A very personal story. Write it down. I'd love to read it. It's not for everyone, but I have found great comfort in reading memoirs and non-fiction, as well as fiction, poetry, listening to music and so on, and at some point, when I was very depressed, anything I could relate to, that told me I was not alone, comforted me, gave me hope. So you could write about a character that is you. I did it. I wrote about a character and she's me. I'm only having a hard time in feeling any kindness or forgiveness towards her.
Ansuya, I have no right to barge into your life as if I were Dr Klutz the psychoanalyst, but – in terms of your writing and the difficulties of assembling the patchwork of past and present – I was wondering where the heart of your subject was, since that is key to your editorial decisions (I won't try to do better than GS's marvellous advice above). I've noted two things you've said, that seem to me to be close to the heart of why you're telling this story: "This was when I decided to improve myself, by starving myself, *" and "I'm only having a hard time in feeling any kindness or forgiveness towards her." That's very stark, very hard. You probably have your own ideas about how it came about that you feel so harshly towards yourself. Or perhaps you'd rather, as you say, avoid looking into it. But I can't help thinking you should try.
Forgive me if I've rushed in where angels fear to tread ;)
* as an opening line, that would make me want to read on! But you'd be opening up new fields – we'd want to know what happened next, but also what happened before...
That you feel hostility toward the character that is you -you will, I feel sure, outgrow! You didn't do this to yourself, develop these painful ways of coping with being alone. And the view that you are to "blame," you have already outgrown it. You have already forgiven yourself, as it were, by writing the book. And you have a great support team. Sometimes when who we are in our hearts is "the abandoned one," it takes time to recognize that we are no longer in that position, that there is a path out. And we are on it. No guarantees, of course! But we are on that path!
I'm not so sure, I really despise the character and the book, and myself, most of the time. I often feel a certain aversion to go on with it. With the book and life in general. But then I think about those girls and also feel a certain obligation, as weird as that may sound, to write about it.
Half the time, wait, only about 1/4 the time, I despise myself, though curiously I do not despise my "people" in the stories. Life is so often painful and despicable, but that is just what is. Sometimes it can be very beautiful - beautiful things are sometimes horrific, and horrific things can be, briefly, beautiful. I am deeply mindful of the beauty you give those girls, and grateful that you are giving to them, and to your own young self in the process. It's a yo-yo string, Ansuya. We go up and down it. I'm a great deal older than you and i hope you can believe me that as long as you do work you love, you will ease some as time goes on. And the writing gives you a path. I am alive today because of that path. I have accepted that I gave up my road to into the published, acclaimed, prize winning tribe, but I am a very good writer, as you so clearly are, as well, and I am learning still every single day! This year I have selected two very very short pieces and paid children to illustrate them. Those illustrations are so extraordinary, I am taking those little stories (6 pages, 8 with the illustrations - each with a beautiful cover) to the local Christmas Fair. So far everyone who has seen them has loved them, and they have liked my stories as well as the pictures. One person even baked a cake out of beet sugar, as I had in one of the booklets. And this afternoon, one of my neighbors who is recovering from knee surgery, read my story aloud to me. That is a first! I heard it from an entirely new angle. All this has made me incredibly happy! The success of the children's work and of my stories is the first time in 40 years I have produced something I feel entirely good about. I have published three books, but always felt - embarrassed. These small triumphs are all good and life-giving. I'd love to know more about your relationship with your publisher and the writer who saw your genius.
That’s beautiful!! I’ve been working as a babysitter as a student and honestly I never felt more calm and at pieces in my life than when I was reading to them or making drawings with them. I do want to read your books, if that’s ok with you? Ask away about my publisher or the writer. I don’t know if he saw genius, but he did call it ‘best novel in a decade’ which made me very uncomfortable haha.
That struggle about hating or liking oneself really resonates with me. There are so many things I wish I could go back in time (in a DeLorean!) and undo, or redo. I hated myself from about the age of nine until two or three years ago when my wife (who had similar issues) held up a mirror that was not a product of my own head and said, look at all the people who love you. This was a bit like being hit by lightning, to say the least: being rewired at the cellular or molecular level. It’s still easy as bad pie to hate myself, until this memory resurfaces, and spins my brain back to a more realistic (ha ha!) position. The only other thing I can say about it is that it’s true that not hating oneself makes it easier to shine some love onto others. This journey is worthwhile, no matter how long it takes.
PS Mary g also held up a mirror like that to me a couple months ago, for which I am infinitely grateful. But that’s who she is, thank goodness!!
Best novel in a decade means genius! My 2nd ed of Virginia Primitive is newly out on Amazon. It's also an Ebook on Kindle. An older book, Rapture, is also available but only as an Ebook.
I’ve never met the author, I send him an email. I picked him because he’s teacher at an art college where the teaches Creative Writing, which is still quite new here. So I thought he might have good advice. But his advice was thus: send it to a publisher.
Ansuya, i am sitting here, taking in your words, and in awe of you. You haven't been outside since 2015. I think I am dumbstruck at the moment, for once almost completely silenced. That you have been through what you've been through; that you continue to struggle with your existence--and yet you have created this book full of you and your life and feelings--it's pretty much a miracle, really. Of course, i wish i could take you by the hand and walk next to you outside, but I also know that you will step out when you are ready, however long that takes. I will go to sleep tonight thinking about you and your willingness to share these parts of yourself with all of us here. I hope you can see the pulses that i'm sending from my heart to yours at this moment. I can't wait to read your book.
Ansuya, what remarkable strengths you have. It sounds like writing your novel has been therapeutic in many ways. Thank you for putting yourself out here in such a vulnerable way. I'm a mental health provider and I can understand what a big deal all of this is. Keep going. So trite, but true, that you climb a mountain one step at a time.
I've been curious how I fit here with regard to being a novel writer, and not a short story writer (yet) so I really appreciate your question. I thought my novel would involve three character points of view, alternating chapters. I decided to write the story first in the pov of one character, and he took over. Now I have a first draft with just his point of view. I think the other characters may each get their own novel, instead of trying to bring it all into one.
I think it makes sense to consider that you really have two novels. What an accomplishment. And I'm over the moon that you have a contract.
Lastly, using the program Scrivener was a game changer for me. I'd never envisioned an entire novel before this. With the program, I can see all my scenes lined up on the left side of the screen as I write. I can move them around or categorize them into chapters. I admit I haven't taken the time to learn all I can do with it so I'm sure there's a lot more. Thanks again and best of luck with everything.
This is so kind, thank you. I was really doubting myself when I just blurted the story out here.
Yes, I was using Scrivener before I had a book deal and an editor, and he prefers to work with word, but since the trouble keeping sight of all the chapters and where they went all started there for me, I guess the better option would be to write the final draft in Scrivener again. There are too many options there for my brain to explore or understand so I just used the most basic program back then.
Yes, I think that's a good idea. I've been compiling into word, then returning to the original on scrivener to make revisions. I love some of the ideas here about creating tangible visuals, as well, like notecards or symbols. We need to not feel stuck to the computer, even though it's a great tool.
Yes, I have! It’s funny: after reading her first piece about ADHD I’ve asked my psychiatrist if I could take a test. Because it felt so relatable, like I could have written that about myself. I never thought about that possibility before. And he replied: ‘yes, I suspect you’re right, because of you’re associative writing in emails.’ So we took the test, and the results were kind of obvious 🫣
Yes--I’m there with you--late (and casual) diagnosis following my kids’ diagnoses. But I believe my parents’ neurodivergences and various successes encouraged me to find and support my own way of doing things...though that’s not the whole story, of course. You sound like you’re doing great work. I hope this conversation helps you move forward. One of the favorite pieces of advice I’ve ever gotten, and need again and again, is the reminder that the answer, the structure, the way to revise the book is not out there to be discovered, but is a decision we get to make.
True, but that makes it even harder, I think. You have to decide what works best. For writing, ADHD might have positive aspects as well. For life, it’s harder. I mean, a lot of pieces of the puzzle of my past fell into place: why I was such a dreamy kid, always wanted to do things differently, follow my own endless imagination. But now I wonder how this relates to all my fears as well. Like there are always tons of things to consider that could go wrong. So sending George a question or writing a comment out here was a huge deal for me, actually.
I did convince myself to send the question because I could do it anonymously, so if people would find it dumb I could just hideout. And then there I was all of a sudden writing all of this personal stuff, panicking again, afterwards. Like hell, what have I just done?
Oh, Sally, how heartbreaking. So many terrible losses. I can only imagine what you’ve been through. Survival is a success. You are resilient. And I’ve followed you within this group; you always make thoughtful and generous comments. That’s also a success. You have a great heart, and real wisdom.
Sallie: Your words "i survived" hold such power! And give others such hope! The very words "I survived" are a balm to so many others. Do you think you must decide in advance what you were left with? Or is it possible to just start writing about a woman, like you, who survived such tragedies? And through the writing, perhaps discovering "what is left." In the meantime, I'm so glad you are here.
Thank you, Mary. I'm glad I'm here too. and most of my writing is like your description. I write and then, sometimes long afterward, see where it is going and then tighten the threads. This is a little scarier, though. I wake up one day, feeling that yes, there's a connection, just do it. And the next I wake up in a hayfield.
It also scares the hell out of me to write about some of my bad experiences, I often feel the tendency to throw it all out. I hate to write about it and hate to read it back afterwords. I even try to find excuses not to work on the book. Or that part of it, at least. Still I wrote it all down. I guess, and this is very doubtful, I did that because I have a silly hope that my book could change things, for the girls who suffer now, I want them to get a better treatment than I did back then.
Hi, Ansuya. Credit yourself for being brave. A lot of great writers return to deep dark realms to write about them and part of what makes them great is the bravery to do so. The first canto of Dante's Inferno highlights this point so vividly in metaphor: the dark forest, the determination to find the straight and narrow path, the rebuttals by fearsome creatures, the providential arrival of Virgil, a mentor, to give him the courage to pass through the gates of hell... So, Dante had Virgil and you have George. What is amazing is that Dante wrote this with you in mind seven centuries ago. It was the ultimate pay-it-forward gesture, I think!
That's interesting. It sounds like it was something that gnawed at him. And how could it have done otherwise? God bless, Kurt Vonnegut. I just queued up a documentary about him on my Kanopy watch list along with many others about other writers (just in case the winter is long :-)).
There is something I wanted to ask you, actually. Something I've been struggling with, and still do. Perhaps this is even the real question I should have asked. Do you ever have a hard time writing about the hard parts, I mean, of course you do, but:
I often feel like I'm focussing to much on the other stuff, the outline and the structure, the rhythm of the sentences, getting a reader's approval, basically anything to keep me away from the chapters that are written about my past. I wrote them very long ago, in 2015, over four nights, I don't even recall how I did it. I never read them back afterwords, I'm to scared. My friends and publishers read it, obviously.
I did find a way, in the end, to write about the other girls in the clinic, by picturing them as little ghosts, or nymphs, dancing around my bed, like in a Bacchae ritual. They do, sometimes. They never got older.
My question is: how do you manage to write about the things that caused you so much pain, without the risk of drowning in them? I guess I'm scared because I don't want to back to that place, and very often I'm afraid that I will just hate book for what's inside it, because those are the things I hate about my past. Sometimes I think: why bother? But these chapters are the reason I once began this project. Perhaps I wrote 1200 pages in the end, just to avoid to go back to those 200 that I loath.
Oh my god, do I understand! I wasn't brave enough to write about my traumatic experiences for many years. You have done so and it is surely powerful, to have gotten the responses you have. You are braver than I! Later, as I began to write about those things, I found them difficult to get down on paper, and then on rereading - I was bored to death! The experiences didn't come alive. Slog, slog, slog, words dull words. So I wrote as if these things were occurring to someone else. Nope. Didn't work. i wrote others' traumas, not mine, and those were better. Now at last a month ago I wrote about my husband's death when our son was 18 months old and I hadn't finished college and was in a strange place, alone. As I would write a sentence, I thought, oh how BORING. But I didn't stop and I didn't erase, I drew a line through the boring parts and dug down into my memories. And after a bit, something real came up. then I wrote some more. BORING! Again I drew a line through the words, leaving them in place, and so on and then I made that process part of the story. How I got to the raw and the real through the cliches, through the patter. And I have at last written that day in a way that I can feel and reread. 1000 words. I've given it to one reader, without any warning. And she was shaken by it. She said she'd find herself falling into a thought or a description as she read, and then I'd cross out something and she'd go on to the next uncrossed out bit, and finally was not reading the cross-outs, but she understood them. Conventional responses, conventional "stories," would crop up for me to hide behind and I'd mark through them and get to the real meat. Until I had the first part of the experience, the day, my 22nd birthday, when my husband left the house and never came back. My waiting and watching, and my sudden knowledge, he's dead! And his friend's arrival and our search and what we found, and how I became violently ill. And how I managed at last to sleep with my arms around my little boy, and how days later a neighbor brought me a sweet custard that I could eat, and the realization that if I could eat, I could live. And I'd have to for the child. That reader is NOT a writer. But she got it. So at last I have managed to express some of the reality of myself and my child in the world we were thrown into by this shattering death. Now I am working on how at last, much much later, I also began to recover from the shock that had left me so numb. And how I ventured out into living again. I grew up in the South in the era before the Civil Rights Movement, which was harsher than any other part of our country than - a different harshness, one of the body alone - the Arctic Circle. People, my people, in the South cut themselves off from all real humanity and abused people, and they are doing it again. Women, Blacks, immigrants, the very poor, are treated like trash because in order not to admit what the white people have actually done to other human beings, they have to cease being human in the real sense. Coming out of my shock, trying to make a living, having the help of a dear friend, I had a cross burned on my lawn. I can smell it to this day. I was so afraid for my friend and my child that I left the South again and went back North. I've lived. But not until my 70s have I found myself in a community where with despite my differences, I am accepted. And at peace. But place marks us, and part of me longs for the rivers and fields I grew up in. I can never go back. I went back for visits while my friend was still alive. I helped her in her old age, and i loved her. I used to loathe those people, my people. I ached to write of them and i made them all villains. Now I am able to see them as humans like we all are. But it took a long time. The only thing I can do to honor our humanity is to write it until it is REAL. However often I have to cross-out the tritenesses, even the sorrows, that I hide behind. Thank you for your letter, Ansuya. I hope my answer is not painful to you.
How could it be painful? It's beautiful, although I wish you'd never had to go through this. My own experiences are bread crumbs in comparison. I hope I can read this book some day!
How could your experiences be bread crumbs in comparison with anything? We don't compare pain, it's not on a scale! We suffer, we struggle, and we must find acceptance in ourselves, really we must. We are mortal, we are animals, we are born, we live with suffering and joy and work, and we die! You are not a bread crumb! you are a full, delicious meal with hot sauce! Don't forget that. I have your email address. When I am satisfied momentarily with my chapter 1 of that life, I will email it to you. I can send it as an attached pdf. Someday, you will send me part of your work.
I've been poring over these replies and your answers for ages, what an amazing experience. This particular post really got me though, because I've often wondered the same thing often. Typically I think writers tend to focus on personal experiences which will drag their work out of the mediocre that makes up most of life, the defining, often traumatising moments that make us "us". But I've found more often than not, while we can draw on those moments to give our work depth, plunging in the deep end and trying to describe them realistically, naturally - i.e. without any conceptualising or fictional distance - never does those experiences much justice.
One example I have personally, has been trying to write about staying overnight in a hospice. My Mum was passing away, and I decided to stay in the chair by her bedside. There were six terminally ill patients in the same ward, which was so quiet and peaceful in the early hours after midnight. "Using" it as a scene per se, I always quickly feels cheapening, like I'm exploiting what's too obviously emotional, or like it's a set-piece without a story. But... thinking deeper about the experience, I know that in other work I'm happy with that deals with death in one form or another, that experience in the hospice has given those other - less direct, less obviously connected - scenes an emotional illumination they'd otherwise lack.
This reminds me also of a great lecture I heard the screenwriter and director Paul Schrader give (it's on YouTube), about how he gets students to start out by listing their pivotal experiences, then asks them to use find a metaphor for that experience, which will be the starting premise of their script. I.e Schrader's overwhelming loneliness became a taxi, becoming Taxi Driver. Schrader's feeling of not being able to express love, turned into American Gigolo! Essentially, his method is about finding a useful distance between the actual event/feeling/experience and the dramatic, fictionalised action. But having the emotional foundation gives the work its power, whether it's about taxi drivers, blue collar workers in a car factory, male escorts or... cat people (I'm not sure what the metaphor was for that one, yet.)
To have a character sitting in a chair in hospice would be a great starting point for a story, you could have a character sitting there, remembering things from childhood, for example.
I know you kind of answered this question down below already. I'm just wondering how you managed to do it, still. Since I'm really having a hard time pouring in those old 'wounds,' to say it somewhat dramatically.
I have a question, Ansuya. Your story of surviving a painful illness that prevented you from participating at your fullest in your young life - how did this end? At what time were you freed? What did you do? Indeed, what changes did your trauma make that arc through your present life.
I was surrounded by family suicides before I was 30, and they took all the life out of me. I had one child, whose father was dead, and a second, whose father was dangerous. My parents both died by suicide. At the end of a couple of decades of struggle, what did I have? What can I give a character if that character is not me? I have to decide - or invent - what I was left with, or there is not book. Is your story similar, or do you know what you were left with? What from your illness has fed the successes in your life? I'm having trouble finding successes. I survived - that seems lame! What are you doing, I think is what I'm asking, with the events of your past that were so traumatic?
Hi Sallie,
first of all, I'm so sorry to hear this. Thank you so much, for sharing this.It means more to me then I can say, to be honest. I can answer your question but it's not a cheerful story of success -anything but. If you want to hear my story, which -and this is no surprise- is a very long one, & I don't know if this is the appropriate place to write about that stuff here, but, well, I was a very very anxious child to begin with. I didn't get the attention from my parents, or what my therapist calls 'save environment' that was needed, got bullied a lot at school. In high school I finally made friends, but I had a tendency to depression and yes, suicidal thoughts. That's why my friends didn't want to 'hang' with me anymore. This was when I decided to improve myself, by starving myself. Then, from my 14th till my 17th year I've been hospitalized, at the worst kind of places, where there is a lot of 'forced eating', you know, ehm, with a tube.
So my trauma really has to do with this experience of being held by grown-ups, against my will, being forced and punished, etc etc.
Afterwords I never told anyone about this, for years. But at some point, in college, I got severe panic attacks, got very depressed, started to lose weight again. At some point I wasn't able to go outside anymore. This is still the case today. The last time I've been outside, was in 2015.
Since then I lived inside, and so I started to write things down. Also, I got addicted to oxazepam, a sort of valium. I'm getting off those right now, which is the hardest thing I've ever done. Well, almost the hardest thing. My mother and I are no longer in touch, she's always seen me as 'someone who attracts evil spirits,' she's very spiritual and to her view my illness as a teenager and problems later on, are things I created myself, under the influence of evil ghosts and so on (you can imagine tis scared the shit out of me when I was a kid) but my father supports me, and I have some amazing friends left.
I also got diagnosed with ADHD recently, which kind of explains the trouble with my book as well. I also worry a lot about when it gets published, I mean, I want to be there, right at that moment, physically. And I'm sad and afraid that I'll never be in a relationship or have any children of my own. So that's my story. So no, there's happy ending so far. But lately, I've started taking very small steps. I don't know where they will lead. I started seeing old friends. I wrote this letter. Some achievements for me. I'm writing this, here, right now. It sounds like nothing but its a huge achievement for me.
I wish I could help you. If you just want to talk about your experiences and your writing, please email me at ansuyaspreksel@gmail.com
I am a great listener. And I find great comfort as well in talking to people who struggle, like me.
In addition to this, Sallie: my book means everything to me. It's the reason I'm still around. I know this sounds mad, but it's true. This book kept me going, hoping for a better future. And, well, having a very enthusiastic publisher and encouraging publishing team and supportive friends helps a lot. So, at least I can say this: I'm left here, with my book. It's all I have to offer atm. I don't know if it will be enough, but it's enough right now. I really hope this counts for you too. Writing, and reading as well, gives me so much joy. I'm not sure if this is the answer you where looking for, though.
Of course, it is a beautiful answer.
If, with 'what am I left with', you meant, 'what have I gained by going through all this?' Then my answer would be: a story. A story of survival. A very personal story. Write it down. I'd love to read it. It's not for everyone, but I have found great comfort in reading memoirs and non-fiction, as well as fiction, poetry, listening to music and so on, and at some point, when I was very depressed, anything I could relate to, that told me I was not alone, comforted me, gave me hope. So you could write about a character that is you. I did it. I wrote about a character and she's me. I'm only having a hard time in feeling any kindness or forgiveness towards her.
Ansuya, I have no right to barge into your life as if I were Dr Klutz the psychoanalyst, but – in terms of your writing and the difficulties of assembling the patchwork of past and present – I was wondering where the heart of your subject was, since that is key to your editorial decisions (I won't try to do better than GS's marvellous advice above). I've noted two things you've said, that seem to me to be close to the heart of why you're telling this story: "This was when I decided to improve myself, by starving myself, *" and "I'm only having a hard time in feeling any kindness or forgiveness towards her." That's very stark, very hard. You probably have your own ideas about how it came about that you feel so harshly towards yourself. Or perhaps you'd rather, as you say, avoid looking into it. But I can't help thinking you should try.
Forgive me if I've rushed in where angels fear to tread ;)
* as an opening line, that would make me want to read on! But you'd be opening up new fields – we'd want to know what happened next, but also what happened before...
No, this is actually very helpful, and you are definitely right. I Am afraid to dive back into the ‘dark matter’ and moving in circles around it.
That you feel hostility toward the character that is you -you will, I feel sure, outgrow! You didn't do this to yourself, develop these painful ways of coping with being alone. And the view that you are to "blame," you have already outgrown it. You have already forgiven yourself, as it were, by writing the book. And you have a great support team. Sometimes when who we are in our hearts is "the abandoned one," it takes time to recognize that we are no longer in that position, that there is a path out. And we are on it. No guarantees, of course! But we are on that path!
I'm not so sure, I really despise the character and the book, and myself, most of the time. I often feel a certain aversion to go on with it. With the book and life in general. But then I think about those girls and also feel a certain obligation, as weird as that may sound, to write about it.
Half the time, wait, only about 1/4 the time, I despise myself, though curiously I do not despise my "people" in the stories. Life is so often painful and despicable, but that is just what is. Sometimes it can be very beautiful - beautiful things are sometimes horrific, and horrific things can be, briefly, beautiful. I am deeply mindful of the beauty you give those girls, and grateful that you are giving to them, and to your own young self in the process. It's a yo-yo string, Ansuya. We go up and down it. I'm a great deal older than you and i hope you can believe me that as long as you do work you love, you will ease some as time goes on. And the writing gives you a path. I am alive today because of that path. I have accepted that I gave up my road to into the published, acclaimed, prize winning tribe, but I am a very good writer, as you so clearly are, as well, and I am learning still every single day! This year I have selected two very very short pieces and paid children to illustrate them. Those illustrations are so extraordinary, I am taking those little stories (6 pages, 8 with the illustrations - each with a beautiful cover) to the local Christmas Fair. So far everyone who has seen them has loved them, and they have liked my stories as well as the pictures. One person even baked a cake out of beet sugar, as I had in one of the booklets. And this afternoon, one of my neighbors who is recovering from knee surgery, read my story aloud to me. That is a first! I heard it from an entirely new angle. All this has made me incredibly happy! The success of the children's work and of my stories is the first time in 40 years I have produced something I feel entirely good about. I have published three books, but always felt - embarrassed. These small triumphs are all good and life-giving. I'd love to know more about your relationship with your publisher and the writer who saw your genius.
That’s beautiful!! I’ve been working as a babysitter as a student and honestly I never felt more calm and at pieces in my life than when I was reading to them or making drawings with them. I do want to read your books, if that’s ok with you? Ask away about my publisher or the writer. I don’t know if he saw genius, but he did call it ‘best novel in a decade’ which made me very uncomfortable haha.
That struggle about hating or liking oneself really resonates with me. There are so many things I wish I could go back in time (in a DeLorean!) and undo, or redo. I hated myself from about the age of nine until two or three years ago when my wife (who had similar issues) held up a mirror that was not a product of my own head and said, look at all the people who love you. This was a bit like being hit by lightning, to say the least: being rewired at the cellular or molecular level. It’s still easy as bad pie to hate myself, until this memory resurfaces, and spins my brain back to a more realistic (ha ha!) position. The only other thing I can say about it is that it’s true that not hating oneself makes it easier to shine some love onto others. This journey is worthwhile, no matter how long it takes.
PS Mary g also held up a mirror like that to me a couple months ago, for which I am infinitely grateful. But that’s who she is, thank goodness!!
Thank God for Mary G (my mind always adds Blige, very annoying!)
What did she say to you?!? I mean, if you want to share it.
Best novel in a decade means genius! My 2nd ed of Virginia Primitive is newly out on Amazon. It's also an Ebook on Kindle. An older book, Rapture, is also available but only as an Ebook.
I’ve never met the author, I send him an email. I picked him because he’s teacher at an art college where the teaches Creative Writing, which is still quite new here. So I thought he might have good advice. But his advice was thus: send it to a publisher.
Ansuya, i am sitting here, taking in your words, and in awe of you. You haven't been outside since 2015. I think I am dumbstruck at the moment, for once almost completely silenced. That you have been through what you've been through; that you continue to struggle with your existence--and yet you have created this book full of you and your life and feelings--it's pretty much a miracle, really. Of course, i wish i could take you by the hand and walk next to you outside, but I also know that you will step out when you are ready, however long that takes. I will go to sleep tonight thinking about you and your willingness to share these parts of yourself with all of us here. I hope you can see the pulses that i'm sending from my heart to yours at this moment. I can't wait to read your book.
Wow, I don’t know what to say, but thank you. It’s really strange to hear. But really kind and lovely.
Perhaps a few times in 2016, but I don’t really recall the last time I went outside. But I hope I will get better and able to go out again.
Yes, I hope so, too.
Ansuya, what remarkable strengths you have. It sounds like writing your novel has been therapeutic in many ways. Thank you for putting yourself out here in such a vulnerable way. I'm a mental health provider and I can understand what a big deal all of this is. Keep going. So trite, but true, that you climb a mountain one step at a time.
I've been curious how I fit here with regard to being a novel writer, and not a short story writer (yet) so I really appreciate your question. I thought my novel would involve three character points of view, alternating chapters. I decided to write the story first in the pov of one character, and he took over. Now I have a first draft with just his point of view. I think the other characters may each get their own novel, instead of trying to bring it all into one.
I think it makes sense to consider that you really have two novels. What an accomplishment. And I'm over the moon that you have a contract.
Lastly, using the program Scrivener was a game changer for me. I'd never envisioned an entire novel before this. With the program, I can see all my scenes lined up on the left side of the screen as I write. I can move them around or categorize them into chapters. I admit I haven't taken the time to learn all I can do with it so I'm sure there's a lot more. Thanks again and best of luck with everything.
This is so kind, thank you. I was really doubting myself when I just blurted the story out here.
Yes, I was using Scrivener before I had a book deal and an editor, and he prefers to work with word, but since the trouble keeping sight of all the chapters and where they went all started there for me, I guess the better option would be to write the final draft in Scrivener again. There are too many options there for my brain to explore or understand so I just used the most basic program back then.
Yes, I think that's a good idea. I've been compiling into word, then returning to the original on scrivener to make revisions. I love some of the ideas here about creating tangible visuals, as well, like notecards or symbols. We need to not feel stuck to the computer, even though it's a great tool.
Just want to make sure you see Rebecca Makkai’s recent Substack pieces (2 of them) about writing with ADHD! :-)
Yes, I have! It’s funny: after reading her first piece about ADHD I’ve asked my psychiatrist if I could take a test. Because it felt so relatable, like I could have written that about myself. I never thought about that possibility before. And he replied: ‘yes, I suspect you’re right, because of you’re associative writing in emails.’ So we took the test, and the results were kind of obvious 🫣
Yes--I’m there with you--late (and casual) diagnosis following my kids’ diagnoses. But I believe my parents’ neurodivergences and various successes encouraged me to find and support my own way of doing things...though that’s not the whole story, of course. You sound like you’re doing great work. I hope this conversation helps you move forward. One of the favorite pieces of advice I’ve ever gotten, and need again and again, is the reminder that the answer, the structure, the way to revise the book is not out there to be discovered, but is a decision we get to make.
True, but that makes it even harder, I think. You have to decide what works best. For writing, ADHD might have positive aspects as well. For life, it’s harder. I mean, a lot of pieces of the puzzle of my past fell into place: why I was such a dreamy kid, always wanted to do things differently, follow my own endless imagination. But now I wonder how this relates to all my fears as well. Like there are always tons of things to consider that could go wrong. So sending George a question or writing a comment out here was a huge deal for me, actually.
I did convince myself to send the question because I could do it anonymously, so if people would find it dumb I could just hideout. And then there I was all of a sudden writing all of this personal stuff, panicking again, afterwards. Like hell, what have I just done?
I’m so glad you did! It always seems like our biggest only-me secrets turn out to be what others most relate to and need to hear!!
Rebecca Makkai just answered a short question I send her in September just now, haha. On her Substack
But thank you anyway; if I hadn’t read it it would have been so useful!
Your survival is not lame. I already want to know how you did it.
Thank you, Andrew.
Oh, Sally, how heartbreaking. So many terrible losses. I can only imagine what you’ve been through. Survival is a success. You are resilient. And I’ve followed you within this group; you always make thoughtful and generous comments. That’s also a success. You have a great heart, and real wisdom.
Sallie: Your words "i survived" hold such power! And give others such hope! The very words "I survived" are a balm to so many others. Do you think you must decide in advance what you were left with? Or is it possible to just start writing about a woman, like you, who survived such tragedies? And through the writing, perhaps discovering "what is left." In the meantime, I'm so glad you are here.
Thank you, Mary. I'm glad I'm here too. and most of my writing is like your description. I write and then, sometimes long afterward, see where it is going and then tighten the threads. This is a little scarier, though. I wake up one day, feeling that yes, there's a connection, just do it. And the next I wake up in a hayfield.
It also scares the hell out of me to write about some of my bad experiences, I often feel the tendency to throw it all out. I hate to write about it and hate to read it back afterwords. I even try to find excuses not to work on the book. Or that part of it, at least. Still I wrote it all down. I guess, and this is very doubtful, I did that because I have a silly hope that my book could change things, for the girls who suffer now, I want them to get a better treatment than I did back then.
not a silly hope at all. This is exactly why people read--to know the lives of others; to find strength in their stories.
Hi, Ansuya. Credit yourself for being brave. A lot of great writers return to deep dark realms to write about them and part of what makes them great is the bravery to do so. The first canto of Dante's Inferno highlights this point so vividly in metaphor: the dark forest, the determination to find the straight and narrow path, the rebuttals by fearsome creatures, the providential arrival of Virgil, a mentor, to give him the courage to pass through the gates of hell... So, Dante had Virgil and you have George. What is amazing is that Dante wrote this with you in mind seven centuries ago. It was the ultimate pay-it-forward gesture, I think!
I also think of Kurt Vonnegut’s willingness to keep trying to find a way to write about the fire-bombing of Dresden.
That's interesting. It sounds like it was something that gnawed at him. And how could it have done otherwise? God bless, Kurt Vonnegut. I just queued up a documentary about him on my Kanopy watch list along with many others about other writers (just in case the winter is long :-)).
It’s difficult to imagine the world without him.
Every step forward is an incoming tide that lifts all boats, even if we don’t notice it.
here's to more days of making those connections. And if you wake up in a hayfield, here's to hacking your way out.
There is something I wanted to ask you, actually. Something I've been struggling with, and still do. Perhaps this is even the real question I should have asked. Do you ever have a hard time writing about the hard parts, I mean, of course you do, but:
I often feel like I'm focussing to much on the other stuff, the outline and the structure, the rhythm of the sentences, getting a reader's approval, basically anything to keep me away from the chapters that are written about my past. I wrote them very long ago, in 2015, over four nights, I don't even recall how I did it. I never read them back afterwords, I'm to scared. My friends and publishers read it, obviously.
I did find a way, in the end, to write about the other girls in the clinic, by picturing them as little ghosts, or nymphs, dancing around my bed, like in a Bacchae ritual. They do, sometimes. They never got older.
My question is: how do you manage to write about the things that caused you so much pain, without the risk of drowning in them? I guess I'm scared because I don't want to back to that place, and very often I'm afraid that I will just hate book for what's inside it, because those are the things I hate about my past. Sometimes I think: why bother? But these chapters are the reason I once began this project. Perhaps I wrote 1200 pages in the end, just to avoid to go back to those 200 that I loath.
Oh my god, do I understand! I wasn't brave enough to write about my traumatic experiences for many years. You have done so and it is surely powerful, to have gotten the responses you have. You are braver than I! Later, as I began to write about those things, I found them difficult to get down on paper, and then on rereading - I was bored to death! The experiences didn't come alive. Slog, slog, slog, words dull words. So I wrote as if these things were occurring to someone else. Nope. Didn't work. i wrote others' traumas, not mine, and those were better. Now at last a month ago I wrote about my husband's death when our son was 18 months old and I hadn't finished college and was in a strange place, alone. As I would write a sentence, I thought, oh how BORING. But I didn't stop and I didn't erase, I drew a line through the boring parts and dug down into my memories. And after a bit, something real came up. then I wrote some more. BORING! Again I drew a line through the words, leaving them in place, and so on and then I made that process part of the story. How I got to the raw and the real through the cliches, through the patter. And I have at last written that day in a way that I can feel and reread. 1000 words. I've given it to one reader, without any warning. And she was shaken by it. She said she'd find herself falling into a thought or a description as she read, and then I'd cross out something and she'd go on to the next uncrossed out bit, and finally was not reading the cross-outs, but she understood them. Conventional responses, conventional "stories," would crop up for me to hide behind and I'd mark through them and get to the real meat. Until I had the first part of the experience, the day, my 22nd birthday, when my husband left the house and never came back. My waiting and watching, and my sudden knowledge, he's dead! And his friend's arrival and our search and what we found, and how I became violently ill. And how I managed at last to sleep with my arms around my little boy, and how days later a neighbor brought me a sweet custard that I could eat, and the realization that if I could eat, I could live. And I'd have to for the child. That reader is NOT a writer. But she got it. So at last I have managed to express some of the reality of myself and my child in the world we were thrown into by this shattering death. Now I am working on how at last, much much later, I also began to recover from the shock that had left me so numb. And how I ventured out into living again. I grew up in the South in the era before the Civil Rights Movement, which was harsher than any other part of our country than - a different harshness, one of the body alone - the Arctic Circle. People, my people, in the South cut themselves off from all real humanity and abused people, and they are doing it again. Women, Blacks, immigrants, the very poor, are treated like trash because in order not to admit what the white people have actually done to other human beings, they have to cease being human in the real sense. Coming out of my shock, trying to make a living, having the help of a dear friend, I had a cross burned on my lawn. I can smell it to this day. I was so afraid for my friend and my child that I left the South again and went back North. I've lived. But not until my 70s have I found myself in a community where with despite my differences, I am accepted. And at peace. But place marks us, and part of me longs for the rivers and fields I grew up in. I can never go back. I went back for visits while my friend was still alive. I helped her in her old age, and i loved her. I used to loathe those people, my people. I ached to write of them and i made them all villains. Now I am able to see them as humans like we all are. But it took a long time. The only thing I can do to honor our humanity is to write it until it is REAL. However often I have to cross-out the tritenesses, even the sorrows, that I hide behind. Thank you for your letter, Ansuya. I hope my answer is not painful to you.
How could it be painful? It's beautiful, although I wish you'd never had to go through this. My own experiences are bread crumbs in comparison. I hope I can read this book some day!
How could your experiences be bread crumbs in comparison with anything? We don't compare pain, it's not on a scale! We suffer, we struggle, and we must find acceptance in ourselves, really we must. We are mortal, we are animals, we are born, we live with suffering and joy and work, and we die! You are not a bread crumb! you are a full, delicious meal with hot sauce! Don't forget that. I have your email address. When I am satisfied momentarily with my chapter 1 of that life, I will email it to you. I can send it as an attached pdf. Someday, you will send me part of your work.
Yes, please do!
Thank you for this!!!
I've been poring over these replies and your answers for ages, what an amazing experience. This particular post really got me though, because I've often wondered the same thing often. Typically I think writers tend to focus on personal experiences which will drag their work out of the mediocre that makes up most of life, the defining, often traumatising moments that make us "us". But I've found more often than not, while we can draw on those moments to give our work depth, plunging in the deep end and trying to describe them realistically, naturally - i.e. without any conceptualising or fictional distance - never does those experiences much justice.
One example I have personally, has been trying to write about staying overnight in a hospice. My Mum was passing away, and I decided to stay in the chair by her bedside. There were six terminally ill patients in the same ward, which was so quiet and peaceful in the early hours after midnight. "Using" it as a scene per se, I always quickly feels cheapening, like I'm exploiting what's too obviously emotional, or like it's a set-piece without a story. But... thinking deeper about the experience, I know that in other work I'm happy with that deals with death in one form or another, that experience in the hospice has given those other - less direct, less obviously connected - scenes an emotional illumination they'd otherwise lack.
This reminds me also of a great lecture I heard the screenwriter and director Paul Schrader give (it's on YouTube), about how he gets students to start out by listing their pivotal experiences, then asks them to use find a metaphor for that experience, which will be the starting premise of their script. I.e Schrader's overwhelming loneliness became a taxi, becoming Taxi Driver. Schrader's feeling of not being able to express love, turned into American Gigolo! Essentially, his method is about finding a useful distance between the actual event/feeling/experience and the dramatic, fictionalised action. But having the emotional foundation gives the work its power, whether it's about taxi drivers, blue collar workers in a car factory, male escorts or... cat people (I'm not sure what the metaphor was for that one, yet.)
To have a character sitting in a chair in hospice would be a great starting point for a story, you could have a character sitting there, remembering things from childhood, for example.
I know you kind of answered this question down below already. I'm just wondering how you managed to do it, still. Since I'm really having a hard time pouring in those old 'wounds,' to say it somewhat dramatically.
Our answers crossed each other! Bless you, dear Ansuya. I hold you in my heart and mind.
One line at a time. Remember to keep breathing the air that sustains you.