Writing as therapy

Writing about painful experiences that have a strong bearing on the author's life may be seen as writing as therapy. People often say that a therapeutic act of writing should be kept private. Whilst I agree that writing purely for therapy is quite different from writing for publication, I do believe that sometimes the raw material of therapeutic writing can be transformed into a creative act and crafted for publication.

When I was young, I kept detailed diaries and, although I didn't see it as such at the time, I suppose what I was doing in them was writing for therapy. As teenagers often do, I pored out my thoughts and feelings, filling my diaries with teenage angst. Writing things down helped me to make sense of what was happening in my life. These diaries were never intended to be made public, and rightly so. They were for my own benefit. It didn't matter that they weren't well-crafted, edited, or proof-read to iron out any grammatical errors or sloppily-written parts. It also didn't matter if the content would bore other people to death. For me, the diaries served their purpose as catharsis.

My diaries also served another purpose later. They helped me to gather together material for my memoir 'The Dark Threads'. Perhaps when I began writing my memoir I was writing it as therapy, but then I decided I wanted to share my experience with others. No longer just writing for myself, I began to write with the aim of publication. It was a tentative dream at first. I knew that the odds of getting it published were stacked against me, but what I aimed to do was write a book to the best of my ability, and aim for a publishable standard.

By the time I'd nearly finished my manuscript, 'misery memoirs' were popular. If, by this term, we mean a sensationalised account that piles misery upon misery, without analytic reflection, then I definitely did not want my book to be categorised as such. It is not a misery memoir, but perhaps I need another posting to discuss this, so I'll leave the topic for later. And no, no, no, it is not ghost-written!

Once I had decided on writing a memoir, truth, of course, remained paramount (truth in memoir will make a good subject for another blog posting at a later date), but now I had to stand back and try to view the quality of my writing objectively. I had to discipline myself, hone my writing skills and work hard to learn and apply the craft of writing, so that I could take my raw material and turn it into something creative, something that would, hopefully, grab hold of and maintain the interest of others: something publishable.

Have I succeeded? Well, I did succeed in getting published. Others are actually paying to read my book! I went into Waterstones and Borders the other day, and there it was on the shelf. But have I succeeded in writing a book that others, people who don't know me, will find worth their while paying for and reading? That has to be left up to readers to decide.

My book is reviewed in the latest edition of 'Therapy Today', along with two novels about patients in psychiatric hospitals: 'The Secret Scripture' by Sebastian Barry, and 'House of Bread' by Amanda Nicol. The reviewer describes me as 'a powerful representative of that disenfranchised group - psychiatric survivors. But what about the silenced? What about their stories? We, and they, must hope that Davison will continue to use her compassion and talent to tell their stories too.' I like reading nice things about me like this (of course I do), though I don't really see myself as a spokesperson. I would much prefer that people were empowered to tell their own stories than have someone speak for them, though I know that, for many people who were silenced by the mental health system, speaking for themselves is sometimes, sadly, never going to be possible.

The review in 'Therapy Today' concludes with words that are relevant to what I've been discussing in this posting. If I have done what the reviewer says in the last two sentences, then I am well satisfied that I have achieved my aim for my memoir: 'The characters in "The Secret Scripture" find writing therapeutic; the telling of their stories is the restoration of narratives ruptured by their histories. The authors of "House of Bread" and "The Dark Threads" also restore the ruptured narratives of their lives in the writing of these books, making them therapeutic acts. But these are also works skilfully crafted from the raw material of personal experience and stand as books in their own right. These three books demonstrate that writing is both a therapeutic and a creative act.'

Do as I say . . .

I've just read something that tickled me and thought I'd share it:


20 RULES FOR WRITERS

1. About those sentence fragments.
2. Always pick on the correct idiom.
3. And avoid all asinine alliteration.
4. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
5. Avoice cliches like the plague.
6. Between you and I, case is important.
7. Correct spelling is esential.
8. Do not put statements in the negative form.
9. Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
10. Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
11. Don't use no double negatives.
12. It's important to use apostrophe's correctly.
13. Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
14. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
15. Remember to never split an infinitive.
16. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
17. The adverb always follows the verb.
18. The passive voice should never be used.
19. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
20. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.

WILLIAM SAFIRE (Journalist, speechwriter for Pres. Richard Nixon and author of Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House, 1975), drawn from several sources. Safire died 27th September at 79.

Catching Up Day

I've got a day 'free' today to catch up on things, but it's already midday and what have I done so far? I' m still in my dressing gown. I've checked my emails several times (must be due for an interesting one), messed about browsing facebook, and looked at my book page on Amazon to see if anyone has reviewed 'The Dark Threads' on there (hey, yes, I've got two reviews now).

I've done no writing this week, except writing a long letter to a friend last night. I did a talk at the speakers club on Monday about writing tools and how they've changed over the years. It seems easier to talk about them than use one at the moment.

Oh well, I'm going to stop beating myself up for being lazy. I was busy last week and it looks like I'll be busy next week. I'll make today as relaxing as I please. Big decision to make now. Shall I get dressed before or after I get something to eat?

Bookshop Talk

I did my first bookshop talk last night. It was at the Saltaire Bookshop, an independent bookshop. At first I was worried at the thought that maybe nobody would turn up. I'd been on Radio Leeds earlier in the day, where I'd been allowed to advertise my talk at the end of the interview, plus publicity material had gone out in the local paper and other locations. But still (typical unconfident me) thought that nobody would want to bother coming.

As it happened, the place was packed! By the time half-past six came and I was about to begin, there was no room for everyone to sit down. My fears that nobody would come had quickly turned into, Eeeek! There are PEOPLE! I was bothered about the ones at the back who couldn't sit down and possibly couldn't hear me properly, though I did try to keep speaking loud enough, particularly as they had all paid £2.50 for a ticket (included glass of wine and entry to raffle).

I had from 6.30 - 8.00 in which to 'do as you want'. I tried to get a good balance of talking and reading for the first part of the evening, then we had a break (sold lots of books!) and then we had questions and discussion. There was a good mix in the audience of mental health workers, service users, and people just interested in books and perhaps wanting a 'general' read of a human interest story. I tried to make my points without being 'preachy' and to include things that would hopefully interest everyone.

The best thing for me was that once I got started, I stopped feeling nervous and I really enjoyed it. Perhaps this was largely due to the practises at giving talks I've had at my local speakers club.

Back to blogging.

Things have been hectic, and I didn't realise how long it is that I've been neglecting my blog. The distribution problem seems sorted now. Highlight of my week was going into Borders and seeing two copies of 'The Dark Threads' on the shelf in their Biography section. The manager said all branches of Borders nationwide have got at least two copies! Waterstones lagged behind, but I think it's available in most of their branches now. Amazon uk are about to get some more stock.

Local publicity has been good, with much more interest than I expected from local papers and radio. I think it's because there's a lot of interest just now in High Royds, the hospital that I was in, which has now closed down along with the other Victorian-built institutions.

I've got two talks/readings arranged so far: Saltaire bookshop next Thursday, and Guiseley Library on 22nd October. Next week a BBC TV documentary producer is coming to see me about a documentary he's making on mental health care in the UK from the fifties onward. In and among all this, I'm busy at work interviewing new volunteers for the next lot of training sessions which will be starting soon. It's all go-go-go!

And when am I going to find time for what I really want to do? I want to sit alone in my 'office' (a corner of the living room with my computer on a desk) and get on with my writing. I don't want to write about mental health either (that's done now). I want to resume my novel, and perhaps have a go at writing short stories. I'm not even sure that I want to bother trying to get anything else published, at least that's how I feel right now. I just want to WRITE. It's funny how the less time I've got to write in, the more I want to do it, but when I've got plenty of time I'm a lazy sod.

How? When? Where?

I don't understand this bookselling stuff. My publication date was two days ago. I thought everything was on track when last Thursday I received the small stock of my book which I'd ordered. Great! But, then...

On Monday, the publication date, sites such as Amazon continued to say it had not been released. But, OK, perhaps it takes time for them to get their web page updated.

Meanwhile, I continued to work hard getting the word out about my book to anyone I could think of who might be remotely interested.

On Tuesday, I found out from friends that Amazon.co.uk are emailing customers to say that they don't know when my book will be in stock and offering to let them cancel if they wish. Eeeek!!! I also found customers I'd directed to buy from bookshops were getting different and conflicting info from different bookshops. I looked up on the website of Betrams wholesalers and found they'd got 'nil' stock and had moved the delivery date of stock on to end of August (???) .

Of course I got onto my publishers in a panic. They said they'd chased up their distributors, Macmillan, who had released the stock to their customers 'today' (that was yesterday). They said that, therefore, Amazon have no reason to be telling customers to cancel as their orders are being processed. Also, Bertrams get their stock from Macmillans, so they should have the books now.

Today Amazon and other online bookselling sites still show my book as 'not yet released'. (Oh, but it is. It is). I get great pleasure holding my book in my hand, but what good is that if potential customers can't get it? Hopefully, these hiccups will clear up in the next day or two (or preferably in the next hour or two). It's so exciting getting a book published, but it's also so damn frustrating every single step of the way.

Interviews

The telephone interview with the local paper went well on the whole. Only thing I'd fault them with is the emphasis on courage. I'm sure I didn't say those last eight words. I do NOT believe that others who remain in the system have less courage than me. But, anyway, think it's OK overall. You can read the web version here.

Got two more interviews next week. Scary!