Excerpt

Another excerpt:

There are days I flip through my book and either laugh or cry from the intensity of the words, the words. Days I have to give myself a lusty round of applause after finishing a chapter. No, really: clapping for myself, for my writing. Some days I will read a phrase or section over and over again, burning into my mind the artistry of describing a snowflake as “a poem in ice.” I mean goddamn, that’s classic. I can see that quoted in the magazines. In the New York Times.

Other days, I am wracked with pain and doubt and it hurts, physically hurts, to think about opening the laptop. For what I’m doing is giving my all. I mean, it’s all there: the abuse, the sex, everything. This book IS me. And in opening the Pandora’s box of your realest, truest self, the shit hits the fan. Everything comes out and the potential for ridicule or even just a lukewarm review stings. Because it’s YOU that’s being judged. Opening the laptop equals opening my heart. It’s not like corporate work, producing something far removed from your soul, not like a job just to pay the bills. Imagine your friends and coworkers reading your story and saying, damn, we just never knew her at all. Who is this person? A broken sage, a hero. A slut! Imagine your family reading about themselves or things they’ve chosen to bury and you have chosen to excavate in the name of art.

Imagine your grandmother reading something you wrote about oral sex.

Your heart laid bare on the page, think about it, saying everything you’ve ever wanted to say, it’s monumental. And you wonder how artists do it, how they put their soul out there to the public as a tangible creation, a statue or a carving or a piece of embroidery or a purse or a book. And you keep writing through that doubt and pain, surrendering to it. Because it’s the real stuff, the elation, the pain, that jumps off the page with passion, daring the reader to look. To feel. Emotions so beautiful it is impossible to look away because someone can read my work and say, wow, I feel like she does. Or, I wish I could feel that way. How can I feel that way? I hope my work brings up deep questions for people that help them shine light into their lives.

I burned the bridges when I set out on this journey because I knew I’d be traveling ever forward. I’m writing it because I have to. Because there is no other way for me to live. Come what may, I’m writing this book. My work must be read.