Saturday, March 4, 2017

From Blog to Book: I had no idea it would be THIS hard

When I dared to start this blog and posted for the first time--to turn my inward suffering outward--it was a liberating and validating experience. It was scary, don't get me wrong, and at first I feared being found out and sued by the parties I was writing about, but overall it helped me and I hope others.

Blogging is my on-line journal and at times I rant and rave and...generally get positive feedback immediately. The more vulnerable the post--the more the feedback. Writing a book is entirely different, though it's still me and still my life. 

When I compose a blog post it's one idea and/or one event. I focus on that, feeling any feelings in that moment, and try to express it in words the best I can. The book is my entire story, at that time, so it's everything at once. There are no more compartments in time--just one continual narrative.  I have, for months now, immersed myself in my own trauma and continually. I work, then come home and write and edit until I can't keep my eyes open (last weekend I worked about 32 hours on this book alone), fall asleep thinking about it wondering if I've misspoken or left an important piece out, gotten the timeline wrong, I have nightmares about traumatic events, then wake thinking about events and trauma...

I am feeling like I did with Peter most of the time, so I don't feel good. I've in some ways lost my newfound "happy." Some times I wake up thinking Peter is lying next to me and not Jason and I find myself in a full on panic attack. I have dreams that somehow Peter has taken me away from Jason and I'm with him again. I have trouble throughout the day thinking I'm still married to Peter; sometimes almost calling Jason Peter. And my daughters....a newfound grief is bubbling under the surface. I've been going through photo albums for the photo insert and remembering the happy, the sad and the abuse....the feelings so intense I am nearly always on the brink of tears. 

As I read through a section the other day, reading about events back to back and seeing a very prominent pattern emerge, I cried, I cried for me. For me as a little girl, for me as a young women doing the best she could, being slapped down figuratively and literally, only to pop back up and be slammed down again. I grieved for a lot of overall loss in my life. Just unnecessary loss and heartbreak.

All of this without feedback as with the blog. I go from feeling confident about my expression in book form to the next minute insecure that the book will fail--the suffering and soon to be exposure in vain.

On top of the emotional exhaustion of this project, it is just very rigorous writing a book. It is hard. It is hard work. 

None the less, it is coming out. I am coming out. I will expose myself out here first with my real identity... very soon. I'm taking one step at a time and seeing how it feels...

1 comment:

Thank you for your comment. Positive feedback and helping those that have experienced the same tragedies are what keeps me going.