♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #519
How much of yourself do you share with your readers? How much do you hide?
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The art of the over share is something I have not quite perfected. Unless, of course, you ply me with plenty of drink. Good luck with that, too. I hate drinking alcohol. The feeling reminds me too much of losing consciousness. Something I have done a couple of times for no apparent reason. (POTS?) Whatever causes it, it is most unpleasant to feel your mind slide backward into darkness, too tired to lift a finger. I suppose that might be what dying is like. Now you know why drinking isn’t fun for me.
All of this and more, might or might not be found in my work. The write what you know advice heralded throughout the writer world would have you believing that every work ever is autobiographical, if you can just find the cipher for it. So would much of literary theory. I suppose they’re not wrong. After all, the writing does come from the confines of the mind that also houses the self.
The better question might be, do I purposely plant myself into the work? Until Trailokya, I had no interest in doing anything of the sort. I wrote to escape me and my dull world. How did I not end up doing theater, you may ask, if seeking to play a role was my game? Well, memorizing lines isn’t as easy as it seems. Having stage fright and not much talent for acting, I went with writing. Too many inhibitions stood between me and the stage. I could never be anyone but me while occupying my body.
How did Trailokya change that? Well, the books track the myriad dreams I’ve had since childhood, putting a bit of a puzzle together to make it all make sense. You can’t get more personal than that. While you’ve heard me talk about the Nervous Nelly poetry can turn me into, you no doubt think that is strange for me to do. In prose, reader, I am at home. Besides, you never know what is embellished and what is authentically from the dreams.
Let me give you one tidbit. Nothing new. Just know that Morgentus is the straight out of my nightmares. He used to make me want to piss like a puppy the second I saw him. I hated him for that. And the dreams would come without warning, so there was no preparing. That was until the patterns became obvious around him. Still, that was a lot for a child to endure, never gaining the upper hand until adulthood. That dream, also made the cut.
Those dreams are a treasure to the adult I’ve grown into. When I dream of that place nowadays, it’s a whole other level. I’ve grown and become far less afraid of monsters. In fact, I like to repeat the line: “I’m not trapped in here with you. You’re trapped in here with me.” Thanks for the epic line, Rorschach! I definitely feel powerful, no longer at the mercy of what may stalk me in the dark reaches of my dreams.
That feeling is why I bothered to write the story down. I wanted to empower others who feel helpless. Those who may feel trapped. Maybe they’re depressed or experiencing abuse, and somehow my book would give them the courage to rise up and reclaim themselves. It was worth putting me into the work, and that vulnerability that comes with doing so. Will I ever tell the whole thing. No, because that doesn’t matter at all. The story of survival, fairy tale cloaked, is what is necessary.
I hope it helps at least one other person facing bad odds.
For them: You’re seen. You got this. I know you do. Stay. Keep rising. Make them afraid to be trapped in here with you! Take yourself back. And, above all, you deserve love, not the romanticized, played out kind either. The kind that reflects your value back at you. There are so many ways in which humans experience love. Take yourself back, and you’ll get to experience them. Better days.
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Maybe writing about all the dreams you’ve had is a kind of therapy in itself? The only time I remember dreams is if I eat oranges before going to bed. Weird, eh?
I think the dreams themselves are a kind of therapy – when you move through being helpless, at the mercy of terrible people, to gaining enough strength and sense of self to stand up and push back. I’d say the dreams have made me a fighter, something others are shocked to find will come out of me when they have a go.
Fascinating insight. My first novel came from a dream that had me reprising my sea-going role in space. Since then, so much of my life (and that of my family) has made it into my work.
I can see how that translates well. I bet that was an amazing dream.
I don’t do it deliberately, but there are pieces of me in my characters. But what does it mean that I identify more with Jake, my morally gray character, than with Harmony, everybody’d good girl?
We do love our bad boys.
Your vulnerability in sharing the origins of Morgentus is truly moving, and it makes me wonder how much of a writer’s mental “safe space” is compromised when they live and work in a foreign environment. Since you’re learning German and clearly have a global perspective, have you ever found that the bureaucracy of staying in Europe—like the legal hurdles mentioned at residence dot com regarding getting a NIE in Madrid—interrupts that creative flow or makes you “hide” more of yourself to fit into a new system?
I have not looked into becoming an expat in Spain (Madrid).