Life as Fiction – Author Interview

by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: Write Your Story, Change the World and How to Become a Heroic Writer

In my previous post, I described the novel, Back in Six Weeks, by Sharon Gerdes about a woman who survives postpartum psychosis and lives to share the story with others. In this post, I ask the author to share her insights into the process of transforming a difficult experience into a novel.

Jerry: What a great example you have set by exposing this socially hidden experience to readers. Could you say more about your journey to write it and in particular to write it as fiction?

Sharon: When I first started writing about my postpartum psychosis, I considered several possibilities. One was a self-help book for women. But because I didn’t have any credentials in the counseling field, fiction seemed like a better way to tell my story. At first I wanted to write under a pen name. Again, I was ashamed to admit that I had been crazy and had struck a nurse in the hospital. When people asked what I was writing about, I used to get all choked up. But over time, I became more comfortable telling the story. It’s still painful, but I gradually transferred the pain to Kate, the protagonist in my story. It became both Kate’s story and mine.

Also, my story did not happen in a vacuum. Although I didn’t blame my husband, he always felt guilty and thought he should have done more to circumvent the psychosis. By writing my story as fiction, I was able to diminish the blame. After all, you have to eat Thanksgiving dinner with your family. Fiction gives you more freedom to tell your story, and still keep peace in the family.

The more I looked into it, the more I realized how hidden the problem has been, for the obvious reason that other women have been just as reluctant to talk about it. In 2000, the authors of “Women’s Moods” said that there was an “epidemic of silence” about this issue. A lot has changed in the past fifteen years as more women share their stories. I’m now proud to say that I had a postpartum psychosis, but went on to lead a happy and productive life.

Jerry: What a journey, from shame to sharing. Actually, this isn’t the first book I’ve read on the subject. I read Brooke Shields’ memoir Down Came the Rain in which she shares her postpartum depression. How do you see her memoir fitting into the whole spectrum of publicizing this issue?

Sharon: As a point of differentiation, Brook Shields had Postpartum Depression, which occurs in roughly one in seven new mothers. I had Postpartum Psychosis, which only happens to one or two per thousand women.  Women with psychosis are much more likely to harm themselves and/or their children. Roughly five percent of women with postpartum psychosis commit either suicide or infanticide. Some end up in prison. I’ve heard so many sad stories. I went from feeling bitter to feeling fortunate that I had such a good outcome.

Jerry: You started out as a technical writer, not a fiction writer. How did you learn the art of story-telling?

Sharon: It evolved over time. I had been writing articles about food science professionally for about fifteen years, so I considered myself a good author. But I soon learned that fiction is very different than non-fiction. It’s a real art form, and you don’t learn overnight. I took Jonathan Maberry’s “Novel in Nine Months” class. That got me off to a good start and provided the inspiration to carry me through to publication. It has been a nine-year journey. I attended numerous writers’ conferences and peer critique groups. I read a lot of books on how to write fiction. I worked with Toni Lopopolo and Kathryn Craft, both of whom helped me refine my story and my art. At one point I put the book away for two years, and then started it again. I would suggest that for the average person, writing a blog, a poem, or a short story might be a good way to tell their tale. A memoir is much more involved, and a novel is perhaps the hardest. For years and years I got up in the wee hours of the morning and wrote a set number of words or pages before I started my paying job. I hired professional editors to help me get the manuscript ready for final publication. It all paid off, as readers tell me they couldn’t put my novel down.

Jerry: As an aside, it’s interesting you mention Kathryn Craft. I’m writing about her recently published novel, The Far End of Happy, based on her own real experience of her husband’s suicide.

Jerry (continued): I am fascinated by the way writing your story helped you move past your shame and gave you the ability to talk about it, and even more fascinated that once you opened that door, you were able to help others, as well. Could you say more about how writing the novel has helped you become more engaged with helping other women?

Sharon: I’ve become involved with Postpartum Support International (PSI) and through that group am trying to help other women. I had extensive media training in my professional life, and so I joined the board of PSI as the Media / Public Relations Chair. I was recently elected Vice-President. Through our annual conferences, I personally met several other women who had a similar lived experience. Our little group of survivors has become close friends. I am involved in the PSI prison pen pal network, and offer an occasional cheery letter to an inmate. As I had no mental health problems in my subsequent childbirth, I’ve provided encouragement to other women who were afraid to have another baby after experiencing a postpartum psychosis.

Jerry: I’m interested in your experience as a novelist writing about your own experience, and then trying to write other novels that are about characters other than you. My readers are aspiring memoir writers and for many of us, once we’ve written a memoir, we wonder what we can write next. Writing the memoir gives us the knack of sharing our own first person points of view. But then, it seems to me that writing fiction requires that you be able to jump into other minds as well. What did it feel like for you to go from the incredibly personal account of your own darkest hour, to writing about other characters in fictitious situations? Can you give a glimpse of how that works?

I learned to base fictional characters on two or more persons that I’ve met or known in real life. By making those characters a composite, the author can create more interesting and realistic characters. I actually started my novel in third person, and then switched to first person. I learned a few tricks of the trade, such as adding a physical reaction—clenching a fist, or gasping for breath—at critical points in the manuscript. This all helps to engage the reader and bring your writing, either memoir or fiction, to life.

Jerry: So what’s next for you?

Sharon: I had a subsequent childbirth that ended tragically, but for different reasons. I realized that I was trying to cover too many subjects in one book. So what was originally one novel morphed into two. I have also started a third novel, which is a story inspired by my mother’s life after she became a widow. The first two books are sad and dramatic. The third will be much lighter, with two widows pursuing the same gentleman. The characters will poke fun at themselves and each other as they struggle with the early stages of dementia. People read to be inspired, but also to be entertained.

Jerry: Haha! That’s a good reminder! As we write our lives, whether in fiction or nonfiction, we need to remember that if readers are going to keep turning pages, we have to maintain their curiosity. Even though nonfiction writers can’t invent situations, we still try to keep people engaged by developing the dramatic tension and release of situations and emotions that make us human.

Notes
Sharon Gerdes’ Home Page:

Amazon page for Back in Six Weeks

Read my article about Brooke Shields’ Down Came the Rain

PSI Postpartum Support International for Postpartum Support International (“You are not alone”)

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

To order my self-help workbook for developing habits, overcoming self-doubts, and reaching readers, read my book How to Become a Heroic Writer.

Writing a Novel Heals Her Shame

by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: Write Your Story, Change the World and How to Become a Heroic Writer

I first met Sharon Gerdes around 2006 in Jonathan Maberry’s “Novel in Nine Months” class. My purpose in taking the class was to apply good story writing principles to my memoir, whereas Sharon wanted to write a novel. She confided in a confidential tone that the story about a woman who suffered from postpartum psychosis was based on her own experience.

“Why not write it as a memoir?” I asked.

“There’s a stigma about postpartum psychosis, and I’m not willing to go public about that experience.”

I tried to visualize how you could stay hidden when writing about such an intense experience. “Are you going to use your real name?” I asked.

“I’m still working on that. I’m not sure,” she said trailing off into uncertainty
.
I was fascinated by her desire to distance herself from the book and wondered if writing it as a novel would enable her to achieve the anonymity she desired. I was also curious about her journey to become a story writer. After her career as a journalist in the food industry, I figured that she, like so many of us who start writing stories in midlife, would struggle to find her voice.

Almost ten years later, the manuscript for Back in Six Weeks was ready, and I read it for the first time.

After the protagonist in the novel gives birth to her baby, she enters that visionary, agitated, disjointed state, called a psychotic break. The novel brought me straight into her disturbed mind, including the shame she felt, and the judgment heaped on her by others. Through the magical transport of a good story, I entered this impossibly vulnerable situation, in which the baby’s safety hangs in the balance with its mother’s sanity, and the mother’s sanity hangs in the balance of the social support being offered by some and withheld by many others.

I was delighted to discover that Back in Six Weeks was a page turner. Sharon had clearly mastered the craft of story writing. And she was authoring it under her own name. What happened to her anonymity? She explained that her courage had grown over the years as she became increasingly aware of the fact that her story could help other women. After years of writing the novel, she now openly shares her compassion for other women who undergo this experience.

Shame is a creepy emotion because of the way it perpetuates itself through silence. This is one of the reasons I love the Memoir Revolution. By writing our stories, we find a voice for our wounds, and can shine the healing light of social support on the dark places in our minds.

Despite the fact that Sharon Gerdes wrote a fictional account of her postpartum psychosis, she has experienced the same healing influence. By turning her experience into a novel, she has transformed the isolating experience of shame into the compassionate experience of helping readers. Writing about one’s life, whether in fiction or memoir, often has this subtle psychological benefit, making the author more comfortable in her own skin, or more accurately in her own story.

The Author Interview contains our interview.

Notes
Sharon Gerdes’ Home Page:

Amazon page for Back in Six Weeks

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

To order my self-help workbook for developing habits, overcoming self-doubts, and reaching readers, read my book How to Become a Heroic Writer.

Memoir of a Nervous Breakdown: Her Mind Betrayed Her

by Jerry Waxler

Author of Memoir Revolution: Write Your Story, Change the World and How to Become a Heroic Writer

One night, when my dad came home from work, Mom told him in hushed tones that a neighbor had suffered a nervous breakdown. I couldn’t understand what that meant. Decades later, after I had achieved my master’s degree in counseling psychology, I still wasn’t able to form a clear mental image of a “nervous breakdown.”

The condition came into focus only after I began reading memoirs. In Darkness Visible, the famous author William Styron describes his psychotic break during severe depression. And in Unquiet Mind, psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison describes her experiences during bipolar disorder.

As the Memoir Revolution continues to mature, increasing numbers of us are stepping forward to share the extraordinary experiences that impact our ordinary lives. In a recent memoir Tara Meissner takes advantage of this new freedom. Her memoir Stress Fracture provides a deeply introspective, well researched, and carefully explained account of her breakdown and recovery.

Stress Fracture begins with Tara Meissner growing up and like anyone else, striving toward a satisfying happy life, when, for some reason, her mind trips into freefall. Her strange thoughts lead to even stranger conclusions. Flooded with false reasoning that makes it impossible to function, she is confined in a hospital for her own protection. From inside the chaotic bubble, she wrestles with her thoughts, attempting to get them back into line with reality. The betrayal by her mind brings her pursuit of happiness to a screeching halt. And then, gradually, due to relentless effort to return to normalcy, she recovers and finds the words with which to describe her horrifying experience. Continue reading