Why I'm So Hell-Bent On Publishing My Third Book
A Musing About The Years-In-Process Book I'm Writing
I started writing my first book in middle school. The floppy disk those sacred chapters are saved on is buried somewhere in the Orange County landfill. Lost in the things my mother must have tossed when we moved houses to share space with her third husband and his two sons. A short lived endeavor.
Father is what I'd titled it. Conveying my former beliefs about how God can fill that void in my life, anyone's life. Though I'd certainly write different words about both topics now (fathers and God), that doesn't invalidate my focus on such a loss: an unfillable dark, empty space I felt in my every crevice. Enough so that I felt compelled to start writing an entire book about it. While barely even a teenager.
A few months ago a new acquaintance told me I'm "ambitious." We’d been chatting about my general life choices and goals. It's not a word I'd much used to describe myself until then, and I've been pondering the term since. And wondering why it was just now appearing in my self perception. Perceived differently, it could be a slight against having dreams and goals that are “too big.” Which goes along nicely with some of the messages I received throughout my childhood and now as an adult: I’m too much, I have too many problems, I have too many dogs. Messages I choose to ignore despite their dark attempts at self doubt. Taken as a compliment, which I do, being ambitious means I challenge myself and don’t take others’ perceptions and opinions as fact. When I want something I work towards it. Even when it’s really fucking hard. Even when it takes years or even decades longer than I thought. Even when I don’t know if it will work out. There’s risk in ambition.
Writing a book in adulthood is no easy feat - I'm currently five and a half years into the journey of writing my third book, the one I'm absolutely unwavering about publishing. It's a commitment of pure determination. I entered this world with big ideas and a strong will to pursue them. And I wonder how much my painful experiences embedded those parts of me even deeper into my core. Creating a safe harbor to keep those pieces of me protected. Knowing I'd need them, want them, when my older self had the words.
My second attempt at a book in 2016 propelled me into this third one. I'm not convinced it's dead yet, and with a title like Revival I think it's going to make a comeback with a glowing new perspective and many more years lived. Luckily that one's not on a floppy disk. It's a nonfiction account of my journey healing through trauma and the decades of survival that kept me breathing. A retelling of the lessons I learned, wisdom gleaned and the support I wouldn't have been able to live without. You'd probably find it in the self help section of a bookstore. Not quite story-enough to be a memoir.
But this third book is. Almost a year after I started writing Revival, a short story titled “Laney” burst through my mental walls, shouting to be heard, word by word over the years morphing into what will be a full length manuscript. My creative nonfiction memoir Laney: and Her Unraveling Story of Healing is a tale of a girl who grew into a woman who didn't know how to live. She only knew survival. My story of recovering through childhood trauma as an adult, the diagnosis of Complex PTSD an ever-validating truth.
It reads in parts like a novel, stories told in third-person narrator, and other parts in first-person, traditional memoir form. Every word is a true account of my actual experiences, with the exception of my artistic freedom in writing a chunk of fictional fragments recounting one of the fantasies I lived in my inner world - an escape from the torment. While technically fiction, it's still true in its own right; it was my experience after all.
But why am I so hell-bent on publishing it? Catharsis, absolutely. Accomplishment, definitely. Passion, most certainly. And for all of the others who seek comfort in a story sharing some semblance of their own. For a sense of un-aloneness. For healing.
What's curious to me is the progression from my first two books reading more logically or straightforward we could say, neither of which completed nor published in any form, into storytelling with Laney and knowing so deeply it’s meant to join the world and break out of the safety of my mind. Because it aligns with my personal progression from self expression being so limited, guarded and blunt into more creative, evocative and open minded beliefs. Shedding my trauma like layers of armor. Evidence of my healing in words on the page.
Even in childhood, I seldom let myself enjoy the fantasy of books and movies; they just weren’t appealing to me, except for a select few that somehow validated my confused pain. I craved structure, systems, anything to make sense of the chaos, not muddle it more. My days were filled with mental escapes as if I were manifesting a better life for myself that never made itself palpable then. But someone else’s fantasy? Not for me. Thinking back I wonder why I wasn't more intrigued by the idea of being transported into any fantastical world, so far away from my own painful one.
It wasn't until a year or two into therapy, in my late twenties, once the healing process was starting to take root, that I became more willing to explore the fantastical. Sci-Fi went from being repulsive to incredible - I just about became a Star Wars fan overnight to my shock and pleasant surprise. Whimsical became beautiful. Eccentricity was now welcome.
This was not coincidentally around the same time I wrote Laney's first chapter. And then the second. Becoming me is taking decades of slowly, mindfully searching deep within, reconnecting with that little girl who got hurt too deeply too many times. As I shedded the layers of protection I'd crafted with the unplanned side effect of keeping my creativity at bay, it transformed my words from well written accounts into stories.
Read a chapter from Laney, An Excerpt: Faded Red Stripes
For the past few months, I’ve been magnetized to this song and I couldn't pin point why. I first heard it in the movie Persuasion serenading a pair of lovers reuniting after a seemingly indefinite parting. A few weeks ago I realized my confounding draw towards it: its a love song to myself and my lost selves who are reuniting.
“Quietly Yours” Birdy (2022). On Persuasion (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film). Listen on YouTube here.
White sails and off shore lights We were passing ships in the night Now I'm tracing shadows on your back Like I dreamt so many times Oh, for so long I've been waiting For so long, for a love like this And I was so sure, baby I'd lost you for a minute but There's the sweetest Spring at my door Can you feel it? Just the same as before Many years have gone by But I knew you'd come Quietly keeping This hope in my heart Prayed the night bring Back what I lost Many years have gone by But I never forgot I've always been yours Only yours, mm There was a time when I let you go Allowed myself to be swayed and pulled But for all my days I make a vow No words could ever shake me now 'Cause for so long I've been waiting So long, for a love like this And I was so sure, baby I'd lost you for a minute but There's the sweetest Spring at my door Can you feel it? Just the same as before Many years have gone by But I knew you'd come Quietly keeping This hope in my heart Prayed the night bring Back what I lost Many years have gone by But I never forgot I've always been yours Only yours Quietly yours Only yours, mm I've always been yours Only yours, yeah Quietly yours Only yours, yeah