Traction

The Oxford English dictionary defines traction as, “The action of drawing or pulling a thing over a surface, especially a road or track,” or, “The extent to which a product, idea, etc., gains popularity or acceptance.” It can also refer to the application of a sustained pull on muscles or a fractured bone. It’s a word we use loosely in everyday conversation. “I just can’t get any traction in the job search.”

It’s remarkable that the same word can refer to a tire pulling a truck over a layer of snow or to an idea that grows in importance, like, say, climate change. That it can refer to a patient in a hospital bed, hooked up to a contraption that pulls the person’s muscles or resets a bone. (Lately, and more personally, I’ve been thinking that traction can also describe the state of a writer who has recently finished two consecutive degrees and who is now trying to manifest a fulfilling career).

The Latin root of traction is tahere, essentially meaning, “push-pull.” Pushing while at the same time pulling. I find the root of the word to be more compelling than the segmented, separate definitions that grew from the original word. It’s the root that I find myself meditating upon, that lately occupies my mind.

Last year, midway through my MFA thesis, I discovered I have a serious autoimmune condition; a condition that means my immune system attacks my blood vessels. More specifically the arteries in my skull. Even more specifically, an artery that leads from my left carotid artery into my left eye. The prednisone that would save my vision, and potentially my life, would also give me the energy, the traction, to finish my thesis. It would usher me into the world of rheumatology, a specialty that focuses on holding a patient in perfect tension – maintaining enough health to function, but never really finding a cure.

Tapering the prednisone is a push-pull—tahere—endeavor. Two steps forward, one step back. When my artery swells again and I have a left-sided headache or vision changes, I take more, and when I have a few weeks of no swelling, I taper down, alternating doses every other day, until the artery no longer reacts. It’s a painfully slow process that involves a lot of setbacks (and a lot of unwanted weight).

Finding traction with my writing, while at the same time dealing with a serious health issue, is challenging. (Hence, the diversion of meditating on words like traction). With reflection, I’ve come to realize that in the tension, in the taut stretch of my writing muscle and in the push-pull of my treatment, there is a vulnerable, more honest place from which to write. A fractured place in need of some healing. The writing in this space is more raw, more humble, more alive. I’ve written new micro-essays, new chapters for my memoir. And the protagonist in my novel has become more layered, more vulnerable with each edit. I’ve found new energy in my writing. I’m more comfortable with the push-pull of writing a novel.

Most of the physicians I’ve seen during this strange year of vascular disease have proclaimed, “You’re too young to have this!” It’s a disease most common for a Scandinavian woman in her seventies (I can thank my Norwegian grandfather). Yes I’m too young to have this. But have it I do. I have days when I don’t write, when the illness wins a little. But then I find a word like tahere to help make sense of it all.

This year I’ve been left to look for ways to find traction on the slippery ground of a chronic illness, which in the end has created a surprising new tension, a new push-pull to my writing. I now search for the stretches of slippery ground that reveal an intriguing emotional landscape previously hidden. I dig a little deeper with my words. I look for stretches of time when my artery doesn’t swell and I can reduce the prednisone. And I meditate on a word to make sense of my newly altered reality. And I write, I write, like a tire finding traction in the snow, my words leaving tracks.

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In Search of the Unknown

I’ve just completed a writing residency at the Vermont Studio Center, a two-week get-away in Northern Vermont, where I lived in a community with approximately fifty visual artists and twelve writers. I found inspiration in the work of other visual artists, despite the fact that I wasn’t there for art, and I ended up in the quaint art store at Main and Pearl more times than I can count.

The best moments were found beside the Gihon River, where water rushing over rock lulled me into a heightened imaginative state so that whole chapters emerged easily on paper. Despite the pristine condition of the writing studios, I found that the organic experience of sitting outdoors and writing longhand – pen to paper—to be the most cathartic.

It took a few days to settle in (See Giving Myself Permission NOT to Write), but eventually I found a rhythm and a commitment that had been eluding me at home. A rhythm and commitment that I hope will remain now that I’ve returned to Virginia.

The visiting writer in residence, Ron Carlson, was a generous, master teacher (he started teaching in 1969!). The one-on-one workshop was a positive experience and I’m looking forward to revising the short story we discussed. Some of the tidbits from his group workshop I found most helpful:

  • Survive the Draft (that’s your main goal when writing the novel)
  • Write into the Dark—trust the ambiguity of the draft.
  • We read in the light, story already complete and understood by the reader, but we write in the dark, where there is mystery and the unknown.
  • Aim for 750-1500 words a day. Write first thing in the morning before the real world intrudes, before you even get dressed or brush your teeth (he concedes that coffee is acceptable).

Ruth Ozeki says writing the first draft of a novel is like “shoveling cement.” Ron Carlson says write it in the dark and aim to survive it. Rebecca Solnit says, “Certainly for artists of all stripes, the unknown, the idea or the form or the tale, that has not arrived, is what must be found. It is the job of all artists to open doors and invite in prophesies, the unknown, the unfamiliar; it’s where their work comes from, although its arrival signals the beginning of the long disciplined process of making it their own….artists get you out into that dark sea.”

During my residency, I wrote furiously, not censoring, not excessively editing, just writing content in the dark, adrift in the dark sea while in search of the unknown. There were times when I wondered if I was getting anywhere, if the magic would happen. And then there was that moment when I pushed through a scene, blindly, intuitively, and I arrived at a critical juncture, a juncture that I hadn’t yet envisioned, and I had that a-ha moment, even as my words tumbled on to the page, practically unbidden. It was a heart-racing, cry-out-loud, magical moment.

I’m surviving the draft of my novel, and my arms and hands are tired from all of the cement shoveling, from all of the rowing into the deep, dark sea in search of the tale, but I’m also experiencing a bit of magic, and my time in Vermont, sitting beside the Gihon River may just have contributed to that. Let the magic continue.

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Giving Myself Permission Not to Write

I’m in the midst of a two-week writing residency and I’ve given myself permission not to write. Unlike the everyday reality of life back home in Virginia, where childcare or freelancing or teaching whittle my writing time down to small chunks of hurry up and write, here, in Vermont, there is nothing but large spaces of time unfurling before me. Endless fields of possibility. And yet, I’ve surprised myself by deciding not to write. At least these first few days. What I’ve been doing instead:

Reading

Sketching

Researching

Editing

Hiking

Meeting new people

Discussing the artistic process

Thinking

Thinking. To have the space, the time, the unhurried luxury of just pondering things has been, so far, the most valuable part of the residency. How can I say this best? What if I tried this? Where can I look for inspiration? What style will feed me as an artist, while at the same time energize the words on the page? Do I really want to do this? Should I keep going? What am I meant to contribute? Or not.

I like to sit on the Adirondack chairs next to the river and listen to the water rush over rock and consider -muse over- my projects and my passions. Whether it’s the fresh air, or the warm sun on my face or the industrious energy of the artists moving across the lawns, something inevitably reveals itself. It might be an urgent need to draw that spinal cord sheath that shows chronic disease, so that I can really know, really understand that piece of my anatomy; or it might be the memory of a book I read long ago, one that could be instructive on style, that comes to me; or I might suddenly see in my mind the architecture of a chapter that had been, up until then, eluding me.

Thinking time.

“It’s not a race,” a sage writing friend said to me today when I told her I was doing more thinking than writing my first days here in Vermont.

It’s not a race.

Since arriving in Vermont, I’ve built protective space around me in order to allow myself to flex and stretch and bend and find the right steps for the stories I want to tell. With my nonfiction, I’m exploring: how will I weave lyrical prose with scientific detail and strong narrative? With my fiction: can I really take the risks I’d like to take with that character’s voice? Can I really blow up the traditional form and make it work? And Evelyn, my main character Evelyn, will she be okay if I step away from her, in order to find perspective? How will restructuring her mother’s voice affect her? Will my thesis advisor understand if I follow my heart and not his traditional novel writing expertise?

I truly believe that the strongest writing is writing in which the writer has taken the time to look at a topic or a character from every angle, writing in which wisdom has been achieved before the pen strikes across the page. My epiphany is just how important it is that I build in time to think when I go back home. Contemplation is just as important as writing, just as important as creating worlds for my stories, just as important as the hurry up and write chunks of time.

Today, as I sit in my studio and gaze out at the slow moving water of the Gihon River, I am filled with gratitude that I can allow myself to slow down enough to just think, to just ponder, and to, eventually, start writing again.

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The Art of Storytelling

Lately, I find myself envisioning my fingers on the keyboard as paintbrushes sweeping swaths of color across a canvas, as an e xacto knife carving an image into a rubber plate, a piece of wire bended and curved into an imaginary shape, flesh meeting clay, molded into story, unfolding across the screen of my laptop.

Creating a story, spinning a yarn, is as much an art as any studio creation. Yet, in academics, it’s often relegated to stuffy English departments with teaching needs and little attention to the needs of the artist, of the storyteller. I wonder does the money and time that a student devotes to her degree really pay off?

What does a storyteller need to thrive and create? I would argue much of the same ingredients that you find in a visual arts program: a supportive and inspiring studio space, filled with natural light, quiet and easy conversation between artists, and professors who offer encouragement for each storyteller’s unique vision and talent.

The two writing programs I’ve attended couldn’t have been more different from each other. The students were different, the cultures were different. I’ve grown in important ways through my experiences with each, but I’m left with questions about writing programs in general. For instance, why do students attend graduate creative writing courses in small, crowded classrooms with harsh overhead lighting? Why are the classrooms set up for lecture-style teaching and why is the student’s writing done primarily at home? What is the model that the creative writing program was built upon?

I really believe that all writing students show up on the steps of a writing program because they share the same basic hopes and desires: to be inspired and nurtured, to feel safe enough to experiment and to find their way into their unique identity as an artist.

When I first began my graduate studies, I was indecisive about which direction to take: an MFA in creative writing or an MFA in visual art. Over the years, both have competed for my attention, feeding me equally at different junctures of my life. There has always been value in this attachment to both. By looking back at the path I didn’t ultimately take, by comparing a visual art path to a writing path, I now find some answers to my questions about writing programs.

Peer critiques. Workshops are the bedrock of writing programs. It’s a hazing of sorts. If you can make it through a bad workshop and still believe in your work, then just maybe you’ll make it in the real literary world. But is it really necessary? I find it instructive that visual art programs do not build their programs on peer critiques.

Mistakes. One thing you learn in the art room is how important a mistake can be to your evolution as an artist. Really, there are no mistakes. Experiment. Start over. Patiently perfect. These are the things you learn as an artist. I thought I’d be rolling up my sleeves, donning an artist frock, and making a mess with experimentation and regular writing exercises. For the most part, this has not been the case; often the expectation is that your work for class will be perfected and polished, like a painting ready for a gallery show.

Natural light. Most creatives respond positively to spaces filled with natural light and windows. It’s unusual to find an art room without plenty of natural light (skylights, large windows, full spectrum bulb lighting). This is definitely missing from writing classrooms, and yet writers need inspiring space just as much as the visual artist.

Camaraderie. Camaraderie is common in the art room. Visual artists sometimes work in silence, but often there are breaks in concentration and easy conversation between students. A professor or instructor moves around the room talking one on one with students and encouraging every student in the room at regular intervals.

Storytelling is an art. One that requires the writer to be bold, seek encouragement and constructive support, to take risks. It’s an art that benefits from mistakes and what the writer can learn from them. Ultimately, I believe that what a storyteller craves is an inspiring and safe space. When looking at writing programs, I would suggest that writers ask themselves about the potential of the real creative space. Does it have the energy of an art studio? Is it inspiring?

I’ve collected knowledge on technique during my time in the writing programs, like a squirrel gathering nuts in autumn, like an artist filling her studio space with art materials. They sit beside me while I type on my keyboard. I reach for the setting paintbrush, or the editing e xacto knife, for the chunk of character clay, and I sit at my desk, which is positioned between two windows bathed in natural light. I find my way. I selectively choose what to discard and what to keep from my courses, my peers, my professors, and I line up books by authors who inspire me. I get to work on forging my way as an artist. A storyteller. And I dream of starting my own writing program, one that focuses on the artist behind the story.

Image courtesy of Karen Michel.

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Not for the Faint of Heart

A graduate school friend of mine, with her husband,  just started a new storytelling site called YouShare. I was thrilled when they asked me to write a story about my 2008 health crisis. I’d recently finished a full book proposal and sample chapter for a memoir on the topic, and I’d been thinking about turning my focus to shorter pieces about the event. You can read the essay on YouShare (please heart the story!) or read it below. YouShare is a wonderful venue for people around the world to share their stories. Do you have a story to share?

Lyme Disease: Not for the Faint of Heart

Imagine this: a hidden bacterium that slowly proliferates, spreading through your tissues and organs and joints, hiding in your brainstem, affecting your mood and digestion and sleep, and in some cases your heart. Now, imagine this: a small group of physicians with business and research interests who, instead of focusing on patient realities, do their best to silence the voices of those who become bedridden, disabled, and forever changed by this bacteria. Not only do they belittle and marginalize the patients, but also they attack the professionalism of the physicians who clinically treat these patients and the researchers who attempt to shed new light on the understanding of the bacterium.

This is the reality of Lyme disease, which is sometimes referred to as Lyme Complex or Borreliosis.

I had just turned forty when I woke one night, unable to breath, gasping for air. It felt as if that proverbial elephant had embedded its foot in my chest. I stumbled out of bed and made my way to the front door. Soon the ambulance was in my driveway and I was being wheeled down our flagstone path on a gurney, the stillness of the dark night sky broken by silent and flashing red lights. This journey away from my house, away from my sleeping daughters, with my husband following behind in his car, was the beginning of my fall down the rabbit hole of Lyme disease.

This is what I knew about Lyme disease before that night: if you find a tick on you, remove it and wait to see if you get a round, red rash and fever. If you don’t see the rash, you don’t have Lyme disease. But I, like so many others, was naïve.

The emergency room doctor ensured that I was stabilized, but made it clear that that was his only job. Despite an irregular chest x-ray and irregular blood work, he sent me home. For three months my health deteriorated. I started fainting in yoga, my once 20/20 vision disappeared so that the external world became an impressionistic painting –my daughters’ faces blurry and unclear, trees and bushes indistinguishable shapes—and I began to have seizures. Soon, I lost over twenty pounds. I was 95 pounds, my ribs protruding through my shirts, my pants falling down my hips. And my brain could not process the sensory input from a moving car and the shifting landscape outside my window, or the bright lights and noise of a grocery store. I was trapped inside a failing body and a confused mind. And the worst part? None of the doctors knew what was causing my sudden decline.

In the few weeks leading up to my ambulance ride, I had had a high fever, sudden overwhelming fatigue, and I had been taking care of two of my daughters who had the flu. My eyes had been rimmed in dark circles and my periods had become erratic. What the doctors did find in the three months of deterioration following that first ambulance ride was that I had thyroiditis, interstitial markings on a chest x-ray (congestive heart failure), mild pulmonary hypertension, and my ovarian hormones were a mess. It would take a committed, out-of-state physician and copious amounts of blood work to finally piece it all together, to literally stitch me back together.

This is what I now know: I had suffered a Lyme crisis. After my health was stabilized I was left with the effects from a mild stroke, premature ovarian failure and neurally mediated hypotension—I’m part of the 10% of people with NMH caused by a rare autoimmune condition, an autoimmune condition that the tiny little bacterium, the spirochete Borrelia burgordorferi triggered while stealthily moving through my body undetected. And persistent infection from multiple tick-borne pathogens means for many ongoing vigilance and treatment.

This is what else I know: some people are genetically wired to get really, really sick from Lyme. This doesn’t make them crazy or a hypochondriac. What it does mean is that clinicians evaluating rapidly declining patients with a confusing array of neurological, hormonal, or cardiac symptoms need to pay attention. They need to rely upon the art of medicine through clinical inquiry and diagnosis, and they need to learn humility in the face of B. burgordorferi.

It’s been seven years since my life was turned upside down by my Lyme crisis. The two and a half months that I was having constant seizures, is a time period that brought me many spiritual and emotional gifts. My faith in medicine, in the hallowed halls of Ivy League institutions was broken. My understanding of myself as a woman, as a daughter, as a mother and wife, as a patient in an inherently flawed system of medicine, changed dramatically. When I close my eyes and envision that time, I see my old, Lyme-naïve-self set aflame and crumbling in ashes, so that a new self could emerge. A new self with a strength of character and a confidence in my own intuitive knowing, which were only glimmers beforehand. The challenge of finding good care, of battling many, many close-minded and misogynistic practitioners, of caring for my family while daily walking through a neurological maze both frightening and confusing, was immense.

Here’s what the physicians who tried to prescribe me antidepressants and benzos didn’t understand about the woman they perceived as a “stressedoutmiddleagedmotheroffour.” It was because of my four daughters—four emerging young women who will one day be middle aged themselves—that I persevered and found answers. It was because of those daughters—who I left behind when I rode in that ambulance in the middle of the night on that first night of my crisis—that I now simply smile and walk away when I hear a practitioner’s misguided and lazy comments.

In Lyme disease, there are still so many unknowns. Still so much research needed to be done. And no, if you’re bitten by a tick and a red round “bull’s eye” rash doesn’t develop, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have Lyme disease. The spirochete is brilliant really. It can evade and confuse the smartest of immune systems. And it loves the juicy, grey matter of the brain. Lyme disease is complex. And it’s not for the faint of heart.

Throughout my crisis and the ensuing years of finding health again, I gained a profound respect for my mortality. I gained an awareness of the fragility of life. And, conversely, an expansive awareness of beauty found in the smallest of moments: in a small gesture of generosity, in a kind word, in a morning when the birds are singing and the sky is blue and the trees are bending and dancing in a gentle breeze. I feel acutely the fierceness of the ocean and the majesty of the steep and jagged red rock of the southwest. I’ve watched my old life burn and I’ve built a new life from the ashes. I now step with an increased sense of humility and gratitude.

Most of all, in fighting Lyme and its far-reaching effects, I’ve learned courage and perseverance.

Now imagine this: a patient presents to a physician with a sudden onset of joint pain, a strange rash, and palpitations. Soon the patient reports GI distress, dizziness, and fatigue. The physician calls on a specialty team to evaluate the patient for tick borne disease. They know that antibody testing is only effective in those patients with strong immune systems, so they run comprehensive blood work and take a detailed history, and they follow a hunch that tick borne disease may have been quietly spreading throughout the woman’s body for years. A recent virus in the house seemingly triggered the woman’s immune system into a hyper state. Given the sheer numbers of patients affected by tick borne disease, of which Lyme is just one, research institutes have by now devoted large amounts of money to state of the art study, and the woman, once effectively evaluated and started on treatment, has the support of a fully informed community and multi-disciplinary team of care providers to guide her through the difficult treatment.

And that small group of physicians who currently control the research for their own business interests? As my German great-grandmother often said with a sharp, disapproving, click of her tongue, “ACK!”

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Family

Writers and storytellers fill my family tree. On both branches, story is an important family value. One ancestral grandfather was a Revolutionary War poet, another a songwriter. The Scottish, American Indian, and Norwegian branches imparted dramatic oral storytelling. The English side (the colonial poet) includes newspapermen, poets, and artists. I often wonder, if the women many generations back had been given more agency during their lifetimes, would they have been published novelists and poets? Did they craft story and verse in their journals while resting between chores or after soothing a child to sleep? To hear, “You’ve got a lot of Spearman in you!” means that one is passionate and warm and full of story—playful. The German branch of my family taught me about shadows, about secrets and shame and the damage that pain can cause when internalized. It taught me to dig deep and ask questions that might be uncomfortable. To look for those things that are unsaid, but seen through nonverbal gestures, postures, or small incremental acts. But also the values of discipline and hard work.

During my childhood, my father was the oral storyteller, my mother the writer. Both valued story from my youngest memories. My father, a history teacher, edited a journal of students’ writings for the middle school and taught journalism and creative writing. My mother, an English teacher, has written fiction, nonfiction, and most seriously, poetry.

I’m still learning to craft and sculpt my prose with the fine point of a carving knife, to reach for metaphor, and, in nonfiction, to write unflinchingly, even when it may be uncomfortable. I’ve learned that art, above all, is to be cherished, whatever the cost.

And so I settle deep into my ancestral roots, drawing from the wisdom of those who have written before me, and I write. From an intuitive place, from experience and observation, and in order to make sense of the world that surrounds me.

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Writing Process Literary Blog Hop

Blog Hop! So here’s how it works: I was asked by author Shelby Settles Harper to participate in the hop. Last week, she eloquently blogged about her writing process and ongoing projects. Take a look – you won’t be disappointed. This week, it’s my turn. Every writer answers the same questions, so you can literally hop from one author’s site to another’s, a peek into the unique processes and inspirations of writers across the country. I’m excited to unveil the names of the three writers who you can hop to next week. Let’s just say that each writer is unique and talented and generous with their tellings. Read on. And at the end of this post, you’ll find out who!

What I’m working on now

I just finished an extensive book proposal with draft chapters and a complete outline for a memoir, which I’ve tentatively titled “Misperceptions.” It’s a project that I’ve been working on for a few years, experimenting with how to tell the story, which parts to tell, defining the time line and overall arc. All of the practice has been worth it. I feel really confident about the book proposal and I’m excited to send it out to agents.

With the book proposal done, I’ve been able to return to my novel in progress, “Finding Evelyn.” Set in the 50s, it centers on three women who are interconnected on many levels. One woman is an inmate at the Staunton mental asylum, another is one of the first female anthropologists of her time, and the third is a young woman who hangs out in the Natural History Museum with her sketchpad and is befriended by an elderly naturalist. The young woman’s story is inextricably interwoven into the stories of the other two women. It’s a challenge because I’m essentially telling three women’s stories and focusing a lot on voice and experimenting with form. It’s an ambitious concept, but I’m committed to working on it until I’m certain the narrative works in the way each woman’s story threads through the other women’s stories.

How my work differs from others of its genre

I think every writer’s work is unique. No writer can tell the same story. There may be similar themes or settings, but ultimately the telling is always different. I bring a strong feminist lens to my writing, an awareness of social justice issues and differing experiences of agency for each of my characters. My current novel is set in the 1950s, so it gives me a chance to envision the injustices that several of my characters would have encountered during that time period: racism, sexism, ignorance about treatment and support for mental illness.

I tend to follow a more horizontal, feminine line of storytelling. The traditional plot style doesn’t feel as natural for me. I’ve studied it, written stories with it, but I believe that both styles are important and will appeal to different readers. It would be incredibly boring if we all wrote straight, vertical plot lines.

Experimenting with form is something I enjoy. That can be good and bad! Sometimes it means that I fail. Miserably. But sometimes, I can hit that sweet spot where it all comes together and the reader is transported completely into my characters’ stories because I’ve bent the traditional novel form.

One of my memoirs incorporates visual art and found artifacts into the prose telling of the story. It grew out of a personal essay that had so much material to expand on that I decided to use it as a guidepost for an experimental memoir form. It’s an exciting project. I’m looking forward to getting back to it when my other two projects are finished.

Why I write what I do

I’ve had many amazing influences and experiences in my life. I draw from stories and subjects that don’t ever leave my heart and mind. For instance, I worked on a psychiatric unit while in college, as an outreach counselor to mentally ill homeless and a tutor for schizophrenic teens, as well as a counselor to young pregnant women identified as at-risk.

During college, on a beautiful spring day in Virginia, I took a camera and lunch with me to DC. I sat with the homeless on city benches and patches of park lawn and asked them their stories. I heard about their addictions, their childhood abuse, what they wanted most to eat that day, why some chose to remain homeless (addiction or paranoid delusions), and from some who just wanted a home again or to get their children back. A few let me take their pictures. I remember one queer African-American woman who wore beat-up black canvas shoes, black t-shirt, and black ripped up jeans. Her hair had bits of grass in it. She told me a bottle of vodka was worth being homeless to her. I suspected that she used crack too – this was during the height of the crack epidemic in DC (think Marion Barry). She was what we would call now “gender neutral.” It was much harder for the queer population in the early nineties. It was also during the height of the AIDS epidemic. There’s a direct correlation between cultural ignorance and loss of agency for populations who receive the brunt of the said ignorance. I think this particular woman symbolized that in the saddest of ways. Although, of course, suicide is a horrible, heartbreaking causality that also happens all too often in the face of bigotry. I think she, the woman that I sat on the back of a park bench with, just in front of the White House, chose life. But the alcohol and drugs were the only way she could achieve the goal of staying alive. I hope that she is still alive. That she’s been able to live long enough to see her natural form of loving more accepted in the mainstream culture.

I also have a fascination with medicine—traditional and modern. I love to research medicine; it’s so fascinating to look at it from the long view, to recognize just how culturally dictated it often is. We lose sight of that in the short view. I recently visited a brain bank to see dissected brains that scientists are using for research on schizophrenia, PTSD, and Alzheimer’s.

An ancestral grandfather of mine was a Civil War physician and I think my family has always had a certain medical intuition that has been passed on through the genes. I have the beginnings of a novel based loosely on his life. It was such an interesting time in history. He came over from Prussia during the early 1850s and was very active in the abolition movement and had many literary and progressive friends before moving to the Missouri frontier, where he practiced medicine and raised fourteen children until he died. During the Civil War period, he invited an African-descent midwife to live on his property, probably a freed slave – or runaway – who knows? She assisted with childbirth in the community. And he was one of eleven men who wrote legislation to bar Confederates from owning property in Missouri. He’d seen so much bloodshed, much of it from the rebel Confederate Bushwhackers.

American Indian themes often surface for me as well. My step-grandfather was an Oklahoma Cherokee and I’ve realized over the years just how much his heritage is a part of our family inheritance. The first time I visited the American Indian Museum in DC, just after he died, I remember crying while sitting on the floor in the room where they play the introductory movie, my youngest on my lap, the back of her hair damp from the tears I was trying to hide. I felt his spirit there with us in that room. It was a watershed moment for me. I have Cherokee blood as well – quite removed, but I believe that it’s carried in your genetic memory, just like the medical bend from my German side, regardless how many generations removed. Even if I don’t set out to write about American Indian themes, they always surprise me by showing up. I try to trust the American Indian characters when they appear, and not judge my ability to tell their story.

And of course, like all writers, my own traumas and difficulties make their way into my stories. As a memoir writer, I find myself making decisions about what I’m willing to put out there as my life experience. Making editorial decisions based on how much I can really bare my soul. For that reason, I think, my memoirs are focused on very specific relationships and time periods in my life. With experiences that are too personal or that leave me too vulnerable with readers, I might choose to use in a story or as a scene in a novel. I think every writer goes through the same narrative decision-making. In the end, our personal experiences, our personal walk through life, inform our writing in very unique ways.

How my writing process works



I absolutely love the drafting process. I see images and scenes in my head and so my drafts are usually very image rich and descriptive. I think my background in visual art may play into the descriptive elements of early drafts. I get a strong sense of character in the beginning and feel very connected to them—as if they are friends or family members in real life. My family teases me about how long I can sit and write, and how hard it is to convince me to walk away from a story. It’s a bit like time travel—I can even forget to use the bathroom or drink water or eat!

I used to write blind, churning out drafts and remaining open to where they took me. More recently and with more study, I’ve found that outlining or writing notes about plot and character to be really helpful. I like to have the end point in mind when I write. For instance, one of my novel characters was falling flat on the page. Her voice was strong, but her actions were boring and didn’t tell enough about her. I spent several weeks, writing about her—descriptive graphs, lists, scenes that would come to me as I explored her more deeply. And I decided on important themes I wanted to explore with her that were more concrete and specific than her place in the overall plot of the novel. I realize now that I didn’t know her well enough before I started writing her story. Some characters are like that: more elusive and shy on paper.

I typically let pieces breathe for a time before attempting major revision. That’s been a struggle in two graduate writing programs—there are deadlines! But, my natural process usually results in letting a piece sit, making light revision and bringing a piece to several of my writer friends to discuss my new ideas. I then return to the piece with more focus. At this point in the process, I find that I’m willing to make drastic, courageous changes. Deleting scenes, changing sequencing, playing with point of view, even cutting characters or creating new ones. If I attempt this too soon with a piece, though, I find that I don’t have the same confidence and the revisions aren’t big enough to feel satisfied with the final product.

That’s it for my place in this national blog hop. I’m thrilled to announce the next three talented writers:

Molly Gaudry In 2011, Molly Gaudry was shortlisted for the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry, and her verse novel, We Take Me Apart, was named 2nd finalist for the Asian American Literary Award for Poetry. In 2012, YesYes Books released the 3-author volume Frequencies, which includes her short fiction collection “Lost July.” In 2014, The Cupboard released “Wild Thing,” a collection of essays and poems about recovery after brain injury, and Ampersand Books reprinted We Take Me Apart in anticipation of the release of its sequel Desire: A Haunting and its prequel Remember Us. Molly is a core faculty member of the Yale Writers’ Conference and is the Creative Director at The Lit Pub. 

Wendy Besel Hahn Wendy Besel Hahn has an MFA in Creative Writing from GMU. Her nonfiction has appeared in Front Porch Journal, Chaffey Review, and The Journal of the Virginia Writing Project. She recently read an original essay for Listen to Your Mother DC 2014. She is currently seeking a literary agent to represent her memoir manuscript Outside the Temple Doors.

Shenan Prestwich Shenan Prestwich is a Washington, DC-area poet, cognitive researcher, over-confident dancer, and general hobby collector whose literary work has been seen in a diverse spread of publications both online and in print. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University MA in Writing program. Shenan serves as co-editor for the literary prompt site Prompt & Circumstance and its corresponding journal, and as Assistant Poetry Editor for Outside In Literary and Travel Magazine. Her first book, “In The Wake,” is forthcoming from White Violet Press in September 2014.

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