It began through my daughter, age 8. Bless you, Daughter, for all time. She had a best friend in her class in school. I don’t remember which grade this was and actually I’m not exactly sure about her age. But I think 8. Anyway, naturally the two girls would want to play together after school and on weekends, so I would drive my daughter to her friend’s home and of course her mother and I would get to talking and we soon became friends as well. Best friends. Her name was Kath.
Kath was a writer. Unpublished, but determined to be. Kath, where are you now? How did it go with your writing? She wrote essays. And she had writer’s block. She asked for my help to unleash her writing and I was happy to do that. She had a copy of Natalie Goldberg’s book “Writing Down the Bones; Freeing the Writer Within”. I don’t remember if that’s where she got the topics for what we wrote, but the book was instrumental in helping us. We wrote short essays together – one page. The topic would be something like: Mashed Potatoes. And so we would write a whole page on whatever came into our heads. It could be anything! Ridiculous, stupid, profound, humble, ourtageous! We could fill the whole page with the word “the” over and over if we wanted to! This was lots of fun and prompted lots of laughter and we grew closer.
My next book “Escape from the Still Face Experiment” details how David and Susannh began speaking to me. I won’t ruin the fun of reading this in that book here. I will let you read Susan’s account yourself. But Susan’s account is accurate.
David and Susannah wrote this book. I wonder – I think – I believe – that they are actually alive, are living people. When I was writing the book, they were so real to me that I felt like I would actually see them in the flesh here in my world sometime – like walking down the street in my town. Perhaps they live in another dimension parallel to ours in some way. I was able to connect with them – God knows how – and their story poured into my head as through a funnel. I wrote it longhand on pads of paper. I was filled with glee as I wrote! Filled with joy! It was so much fun. I never dreamed it would be a book, so there was no judgment, it didn’t matter what came out on the page. Eventually I could see that a typewriter would be a good thing, so I borrowed an ancient one and began typing rather than writing longhand, and then graduated to a Brother word processor. This was before personal computers – or before I had one, anyway. Kath got one, too. Needless to say, Kath, and another friend who joined our writing group, loved what I wrote. They encouraged me. And finally the writing was done. I could see now that it was, in fact, a book, since it was over 400 pages!
I was so very proud of my book. I told my parents (who lived in a different state hundreds of miles away) that I wrote a book! I couldn’t help it, I was so proud of it. They said they wanted to read it. I told them I didn’t think they would like it. I told them it had a lot of sex in it. Explicit sex. Very explicit sex. I knew that would not sit well with them, especially my mother. But they said they had read things like that before, they knew all about it and they’d be fine with it. Well, okay then. I very much wanted them to read it. Wait till they saw how good it was! So I said yes, I would send them the manuscript. They said they would “critique” it for me. Here the red flags began to wave. I could just imagine this critiquing. They would tear it apart, both being very critical people. And Kath and I had talked about how a newly written book is like a newborn baby – or a shoot of a new little plant coming out of the earth. Fragile. Delicate. Vulnerable, is maybe the best word. And harsh criticism – even “constructive” criticism – is the last thing you want. It would injure the baby, wither the new green shoot. So I became bold – bold in the protection of my new child, my baby. I told them I didn’t want any criticism at this time, since the book was so new. That eventually I’d be stronger and could hear helpful criticism, but right now – no. So if they wanted to give praise of any kind, or tell me what they enjoyed about the book in any way, I would love to hear that. Even the smallest thing. But nothing negative. Not right now, anyway.
So I mailed them the manuscript, all 400 plus pages, my heart in my mouth because it was my only copy! But still, so proud!
I didn’t hear anything for weeks. My dad finished it first and had some praise, he thought the writing was good. But my mother wasn’t finished yet. So I waited. They had a tradition of calling every Sunday from their home in Illinois and every once in a while I would ask my mom if she was done yet – no. But eventually one day I asked and she said she was. And I held my breath. She said nothing. I waited. Finally I asked, “Did you like it?”. Nothing. Silence. She did not reply. And then I Understood. She wanted to hurt me. To punish me with her disapproval. I had told them to tell me what they liked, what they enjoyed, and to not say anything negative. So my mother was telling me: it was ALL negative. All bad. She had not one item, not one shred of anything to say about the book that was positive. It was so awful that she couldn’t even speak about it.
I was crushed. I can’t tell you how much this hurt. And how painful it was that she wanted to hurt me in that way. At that time, when I was in my thirties, I still had a lot of respect and love for them and craved their approval. I was so proud of my book. I wanted them to be proud of me. Wasn’t there anything she could find to say that was good about the book? I mean, even if she hated it, wasn’t it an accomplishment to write over 400 pages?!
I like to believe that now, if my daughter wrote a book, even if I didn’t like it, I could tell her it was powerful, exciting, whatever. True things, I’m sure I could find true, positive things to say. To praise her effort, her great accomplishment. Her courage in taking a risk to write and express something of herself, expose something of herself, to the world. But my mother was a very different woman than I am, and she was a profoundly wounded woman. You will read all about her in “Escape From the Still Face Experiment”.
So I tell this to you all to help you. If you ever decide to write, be sure to guard your writing like a fierce mother tiger. Let no hob-nailed jackboots trample your new little plant. Someday it will be a sturdy tree.
This all happened when my beautiful, beloved daughter was about 8. She’s 37 now. And now finally the means to publish this book have been invented and I can bring it to you all. It’s a mighty oak now.