Tell the story you fear to tell.
Currently, I'm outlining chapters of my manuscript rewrite for Gems in the Rough (formerly Ruby Rising). I avoid stories about fathers. Mine was difficult, distant, demanding. I've spent quite some time and money trying not to think about fathers. So, I was struck when it was pointed out to me that my story partly was a story of father-child relationships. I spent a time denying it, looking to reframe the story. I wanted it to be about feminine power. Not that men in the story were secondary or weak, but, dang it, I was not going to write about fathers. After awhile I came to realize, central to the story is the nature of the father-child relationship. I won't be able to do this story justice by skirting around it.
It feels like I'm bracing myself to rip off a band-aid. I hope the skin's healed underneath.
Words on writing and the psyche:
"You have to sink way down to a level of hopelessness and desperation to find the book that you can write." - Susan Sontag
"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in a human situation." - Graham Greene
"It's a nervous work. The state that you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums to get rid of." - Shirley Hazzard.
