“Local Writer, Revisited”

c. 2018 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(9-18)

Wordsmithing. A noble endeavor.

A few years ago, as part of my regular newspaper series, I tried including material from other writers in the area. My intent was to help them gain confidence and exposure as they learned the craft. Interacting with these friends helped me to understand the plight of creative souls more completely. While I had personally grown up in a family blessed with many engaged in this habit, it became clear that not everyone had that advantage. So the thought of giving encouragement seemed useful.

One of these kindred spirits, Cheryl Kelly, still contributes regularly to my online newspaper/blog, ‘The Geauga Independent.’ Her perspective is that of a career mom who has endured the challenges of divorce and office politics to thrive. I cherish the privilege of watching her development, in print.

More recently, I noted that one of my Facebook contacts, Robin Donnelly, was having her first volume published. An experience worthy of celebration. A bit of searching revealed that her book was called ‘Steel Town Girl’ and had been listed on Amazon. Instead of penning a typical manuscript review, I was curious about the writer herself and the experience of bringing this project to fruition.

Robin was eager to speak about her life and the beginning of her own journey toward being an author:

“I began writing in a diary, as a lot of young girls do, as a way to be seen and heard when upset. Eventually, though, my mother would find and read my diary, so I stopped writing and stuffed down my feelings instead. When I became a young, single mother, I started writing as a way to cope with the painful memories of my past, and filed my memories away in a 3-ring binder as a way of ‘letting go’ to show up for my role as a mom. I carted that notebook around with me everywhere we ever moved, and later transferred them into a computer for safer keeping. I thought by writing them out, I was somehow dealing with them, but, it turns out that although writing them out is good, writing them out and processing them, are two very different things.”

I wondered how she made the quantum leap from jotting down personal notes, to the discipline of creating a formal document for publication. Her response detailed a unique path toward professional writing:

“I didn’t grow up with encouragers within my family to write, but I did have an aunt that said I could do anything I wanted to do as long as I applied myself. She was a voracious reader and studied things that interested her or that kept her mind young. She left an indelible impression on me and I somehow ended up being more like her than anyone else in my family. Also, I had been in and out of counseling since my teens looking for answers to why I was feeling the way I was, and they all seemed to emphasize writing as being a very valuable and healthy way of dealing with painful memories so I just kept writing. And, the first memoir that really inspired me to continue writing was ‘The Glass Castle’ by Jeanette Walls. I loved how she told her stories. She wasn’t the victim. Her parents weren’t the enemy, and she didn’t tell her stories to whine or hurt anybody. It was just a factual account of their lives she thought deserved to be told. When I became a nurse and documented my care of my patients, I occasionally got notes in my mailbox from other nurses, saying how much they looked forward to following my shift because they enjoyed reading my nurse's notes so much. So, I guess it’s the example set by my aunt to keep striving and learning, coworkers saying they enjoyed reading my writing reading good memoir(s), and lots of counselors that encouraged me to just keep writing about what hurt.”

I could tell that she had developed an essential characteristic for a professional scribe – the literal ‘need’ to tell their story. This yearning to be heard and understood is potent stuff. A powerful fuel that can propel those who tap out creative text through many cares and woes of daily life. But in Robin’s case, the trek toward distilling her ideas into a workable format required much soul-searching and sacrifice:

“My family is small and consists of a husband and two grown boys but they couldn’t be happier for me. The only people aware of just how much work it was to complete Steel Town Girl, and what a toll confronting the trauma took on my health, is my husband an counselor. It was a huge undertaking that at times I wasn’t sure I could continue working through. In the midst of processing it all, I was diagnosed with C/P.T.S.D. and needed to take weeks, sometimes months off. Showing up for yourself for the first time in decades, to sit with what hurts you, is one of the hardest things I have done in my life.”

I wondered about the actual process of producing her book. She spoke honestly about this maiden voyage into the realm of authorship:

“It was never what I thought it was going to be. What I thought would be the most difficult wasn’t, and what I thought would be the easiest wasn’t. And, truth be told, hitting the self-publish button was completely underwhelming. I’m not sure if I thought Create Space would send balloons and streamers through my computer screen or what, but I was like ‘That’s it?’ In the whole process from first edit to publish, there were so many final, final, FINAL things that go into it all, that I learned to stop using the word ‘final.’”

Robin’s candid assessment made me smile. In my own world of newspaper prose, I have often remarked that my work is ‘as good as my last column or article.’ Like the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ the experience starts over and over and over again with a rapidity that eschews lingering on doubt and over analysis. The short span of time before deadline forces a sort of routine akin to a professional athlete. Unfortunately, this sometimes can mean that a story misses the mark, like a wild pitch in baseball. But, redemption is always ready, with the next throw.

Pondering the title of her book, I was moved to ask about the true identity of her subject. Robin answered by peering into her own ‘back pages’ for answers:

“This is an interesting question because we are just now finding out who we are. As a child, the Steel Town Girl is a vulnerable, confused, silly girl at heart, who just wants to be a kid, and longs to be loved and seen by her family. But, because of dysfunctional family dynamics and abuse, she doesn’t get to have a childhood. She’s a wounded child by night, and an extra, super, do-gooder by day. Many Steel Town Girls are just now, in midlife, waking up to what they really are without all the conditioning of ‘never good enough,’ ‘who do you think you are?’ and confronting the fear caused by being told ‘You’d shut your mouth if you knew what was good for you.’ We have empty nests now, and are some years into retirement, wondering where our loves and lives have gone? And for as much compassion, time, and energy we’ve given to raise up others, we are left alone to pick up the pieces of our fragmented selves. We’ve given up our lives and our identities to our families who somehow have taken us for granted and look at us as if we are somewhat unhinged. So, we turn to stare at a face we no longer recognize and realize in the end, after all this, we are alone. We pull the capes we wear from under us, and sit down at our computers to sew together the pieces of our secrets for far too long. We’ve stayed strong for so long and the magnitude of staying silent for one more second is crushing us. We learn to stand up for ourselves once and for all. And we weep for the little girls we realize we left, lost, without a voice for their pain. So we do the work even when we don’t want to, and when we’re done, we show up with our stories in hand and say ‘Of course I look unhinged. This is what my life has been like, I hope you understand why I didn’t tell you this before.’ We are the women trying to find the strength to love ourselves through the difficult chapters of our lives all while taking the risk of being judged and ridiculed for feeling anything about it at all.”

Robin painted a vivid word-picture with her description. I reckoned the book was one likely to help unlock the creative impulses of readers with their own stories to share. But from my personal experiences as an author, I knew that the actual marketing of a printed volume could be daunting. A task much less thrilling than that of creating the tale.

I asked about her plans for promoting the work. She was on-point in answering with obvious skills in such things having already been developed:

“Ah, marketing. I needed to be laser focused on writing and finishing my book, so, here I am, just now immersing myself in all that I need to know about marketing a book. I used to own a brick and mortar business at one time that was successful, and I’m seeing now that marketing this book is very similar to the marketing I did with that. So, I will again do what I did with my business; deliver a good product is number one, update and use my blogs, FB posts/ads, word-of-mouth, YT videos, give-aways, mailing lists, a blog tour like this one and promote other self published authors, and various other things. Right now, I just want to breathe. Marketing you will never see me doing: a book reading.”

I was impressed by her action plan. Much like the Steel Town Girl she had described, who served as a mother even while battling her own silent agony, she had a map in place to reach her goals. One that charted the steps needing to be taken.

In summation, I wondered about advice that she might impart to others seeking to immerse themselves in the craft. Her thoughts were refreshing, well-founded and holistic in nature:

“Everyone is different, but my focus was and is: eating right, walking/or some kind of exercise, then writing, in that order. I accomplish any big thing in steps. So, I make lists of the immediate next steps that need to be completed, and try not to concern myself with what is too far down the road. I get done what needs done today, and check it off. And I keep doing that again and again. I use a planner and stay organized. I tried hard to ignore anything frivolous that kept me from writing. I stopped using FB for anything, but keeping myself accountable. When you see in your memories that FB is telling you a year ago that you wrote 2,342 words ‘on this day,’ but you are still not done with your book, it re-ignites a fire under you to keep your word(s) to yourself. I stopped wasting precious time getting involved in lengthy discussions in comment streams or groups on social media. And I stopped attending webinars on how-to write memoir(s) after my husband pointed out I might be using them to procrastinate. He was right. I also stopped reading other people’s memoirs while trying to find my own voice. I got control of my mind and I just wrote. If I went down a rabbit hole, so be it. I chased the feeling of being done and being published all the way till I caught it by the tail. I don’t write to impress others. I write to express what’s in my heart.”

Robin’s remarks reminded me of an admonition from my own father, an active writer and author throughout his life. After watching me fail to find inspiration as a wordsmith, he insisted that I write from my own experiences. “You know those better than anything else,” he advised. His words were like gold in my pocket. Suddenly, I struggled no more.

With our interview complete, I felt happy to have made contact with this local writer in a journalistic setting. I felt sure that more correspondence about the project was likely to follow, in the future. And, that the ‘Steel Town Girl’ would soon be better-known by readers, everywhere.

Comments about ‘Words On The Loose’ may be sent to: icewritesforyou@gmail.com

Write us at: P. O. Box 365 Chardon, OH 44024

Find Robin's book at: https://www.amazon.com/Steel-Town-Girl-Robin-Donnelly/dp/1726119912 

Read Robin's blog at: https://robin-donnelly.com