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Writing is its own sort of therapy. Writing the hard stuff is one of the best things a writer can do. Today please welcome Kathleen to the blog as she shares her story of writing out the pain.
Throughout my career as a writer I’ve dealt with some difficult subjects—domestic violence, incest, infidelity, child porn. Those things are never easy to write about but I have long been a believer that the true value of fiction is its ability “to tell the truth unencumbered by the facts.” I write fiction—novels, novellas, short stories—and often when I write, I remember things friends have gone through, stories others have told me. Those things inspire me and I hope they make my writing richer. I just never wrote about my own experience. I didn’t want anyone to know. It happened four decades ago and I still have trouble talking about it.
Back then it was the era for free love and social unrest. I sometimes think young women today have no idea how different things were then. My nieces in college were flabbergasted when I told them that when I was in college men were strictly forbidden from entering the dorm except for two hours on Sunday afternoons. The RAs patrolled the halls and you had to keep your door open and one foot on the floor. That makes me laugh now but at the time it wasn’t funny.
We also got a whopping load of guilt when things went too far. This was pre-Roe vs. Wade and I knew two girls who died from back alley abortions. As for rape, unless you were beaten up pretty badly or there were witnesses, you might as well keep it to yourself, because no one wanted to hear about it.
Two years ago I started writing a book that I called The Monday Night Needlework and Murder Guild. It is set in a small New England town where a group of fifty- and sixty-something ladies get together once a week to do needlework, talk about the murder mystery books they are reading, share gossip, and cookies. It is funny in places, sad in others, and, as the story unfolds, we get to hear each woman’s story and how that has rendered her susceptible to the charms of a predatory lothario who is systematically romancing these women, then taking them for as much as he can.
The main character, Miss Cecelia “Cece” McGill, decides she’s had enough of his womanizing and she takes matters into her own hands. When I started the story, I had no idea I was going to delve so deeply into my own life but when I finally got to the part where Cece reveals her own story I have to admit, I shocked myself with what I wrote it. I shocked myself because I couldn’t believe the emotions that came out while I was writing.
I’ve been through therapy. I’ve dealt with my pain. But creating Cece showed me something I hadn’t realized—it showed me that, while I’ve learned to put the past behind me, there’s a dark corner of myself that still has something to say. Now that it’s out will I need to write more about it? I don’t know—that remains to be seen. But writing that story changed something in me and it made me realize that my writing has to be authentic. It has to come from all of me—not just the parts I like. Our stories are important—they need to be told.
About the Author:
Kathleen Valentine is the author of three novels–The Old Mermaid’s Tale, Each Angel Burns, and Depraved Heart and numerous short stories and novellas. Her Beacon Hill Chronicles–including The Crazy Old Lady in the Attic, The Crazy Old Lady’s Revenge, and The Crazy Old Lady Unleashed–are Amazon Top Sellers. She has been listed as an Amazon Top 100 Author in Horror. Her novellas, “The Crazy Old Lady in the Attic” and “Ghosts of a Beach Town in Winter” were Amazon Top Ten Best Sellers in Horror and Ghost Stories for over 20 weeks.
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Christine Nolfi says
June 23, 2014 at 1:52 pmKathleen, I applaud you for writing about the difficult subjects most of us choose to avoid. Literature should illuminate even the darkest corners of the human psyche. Kudos for doing your part to shine the light on those topics.
Kathleen Valentine says
June 23, 2014 at 1:54 pmThank you, Christine. It was sort of involuntary when it started but sometimes my subconscious is smarter than I am.
Bette Lee Crosby says
June 23, 2014 at 7:11 pmWow what an awesome article. Every author should read this – good advice. I am going to post a link in the Florida Writer’s group. I hope many come and all listen. Applause for Kathleen Valentine!
Kathleen Valentine says
June 24, 2014 at 8:22 amThanks very much, Bette. I appreciate your support and the great work you do, too.
Dale Amidei says
June 24, 2014 at 6:10 amTruth can reside in the telling of something that never happened. Once one grasps that concept, it can change one’s life.
Kathleen Valentine says
June 24, 2014 at 6:35 pmThat’s precisely what I mean when I say that “fiction can tell the truth unencumbered by the facts.” Thanks for reading!
Kiana Davenport says
June 24, 2014 at 2:53 pmDear Kathleen, Thank you for a wonderful article. I was one of your readers who stood up and cheered when I read “The Monday Night Needlework and Murder Guild.” I believe ‘revenge’ can be a good, constructive word. And those of us who have been invaded in the most horrendous way certainly deserve revenge.
Writing our stories, purging our pasts, through art is perhaps the greatest revenge. Once purged, we are at least partially freed of the burden of guilt, and rage, and remembering. And once freed we can hopefully, as Emily Dickinson said, stand once again with ‘…Our souls ajar, open to the ecstatic experience.” Thank you so much!
Rachel Thompson says
June 24, 2014 at 5:22 pmThank you, Kiana. Absolutely, using those stories as a basis for our characters (or stories or poems, etc) is how we move the conversation forward. So many ways to use writing or art or music to represent our experiences. there’s beauty in freedom in that.
Kathleen Valentine says
June 24, 2014 at 5:48 pmThank you, Kiana. I deeply appreciate your support. Not surprisingly “The Monday Night Needlework & Murder Guild” got a handful of negative reviews by people who said it was unrealistic and unbelievable. Little do they know.
Kiana Davenport says
June 24, 2014 at 7:43 pmLet’s just say they are blessed with ignorance.
Janie Junebug says
June 26, 2014 at 11:07 amA blogger friend told me recently that I often write in code. I had to think about that. I realized it’s the bits of stories I won’t tell that are trying to surface.
Love,
Janie
Rachel Thompson says
June 26, 2014 at 5:12 pmthat IS interesting, isn’t it? If you take one and really flesh it out, I wonder what you’ll find? Hmmmm.
xx
Barbara Radisavljevic says
July 6, 2014 at 9:36 pmIt was pain that first motivated me to write, though I’ve never written fiction. Writing helps me deal with pain and work through grief. I have to admire those who can put the whole truth into a work of fiction.
Judy Prince says
September 6, 2014 at 4:28 amSometimes your writing has to have lines drawn in the sand when it involves family members. You just dont want family dirty laundry to go to the Library of Congress. That being said, a story is important to tell even with lines in the sand if you can give hope to others suffering that there is a way out and a path to partial recovery. This is my book that will pub soon spanning 71 yrs suffering.
Judy Prince says
September 6, 2014 at 4:35 amAs a follow-up comment my book to pub is named “Coming Out of the Cabinet”, memoirs of 71 years with PTSD.
Judy Prince says
September 6, 2014 at 4:42 amSometimes lines have to be drawn in the sand when family members are part of your pain. Still, what you are able to write hopefully gives others hope for partial recovery and a normal life. Its impossible to allow yourself to reveal family dirty laundry when it is going to sit in the Library of Congress forever. Writing is partial therapy when you can only tell part of the stor, but it is still worth telling.