Writing from the wound

instead of waiting for the scar

I recently read a book by one of my good friends and favorite authors, Robyn Harding, called THE HATERS.

THE HATERS is about a school counselor who is accused of using her real-life students’ trauma as inspiration for her debut novel and the backlash that spirals out of control upon the book’s release.

It got me thinking about my own real-life experience of writing my debut book, a memoir that details the discovery of my ex-husband’s double life, and the inevitable inclusion of “characters” from my life: my friends, family and, notably, my ex-husband and his family. 

When I started writing my memoir, I was still actively living out the “plot” in real time (discovering that my husband had been living a double life and trying to understand if any part of our relationship had been real). I wrote merely as a way to process what had happened and as a way to get it out of my body. It felt a bit like exorcising a demon! At least, I imagine an exorcism would feel a bit like feverishly writing a memoir while staying up all night with a colicky newborn. The point being, I didn’t set out to write and publish a book. I started writing in order to process what was happening in my life and also to (hopefully) find some closure. I remember my mom and one of my best friends, in the same 24 hours, saying “you need to get this out of your body before it makes you really sick.” And so I turned to writing. 

When I woke up three months later with a full manuscript in front of me (and a 5 month old who was starting to sleep at night, HALLELUJAH) I wanted to share my story with others. It felt like a pretty profound experience, being able to dissect a relationship and a betrayal while it was happening, putting it down on paper. I have heard the expression “write from your scars, not your wounds,” but I wrote from a big gaping wound and I would not have been able to write from a place of love if I had waited until the wound scarred over. And I thought, maybe other women could find some healing from reading my messy, raw perspective. 

So I set off to get my memoir published. It all happened very fast. I cold queried a bunch of agents, found an amazing one who saw the memoir as I saw it (a memoir-thriller hybrid that reads more like a novel than non-fiction) and got a pre-empt within a few months. This is not a typical timeline (writing and selling a book within a 6 month period) and it didn’t give me a whole lot of time to truly process what it meant to be sharing an intensely personal story with the world. Going back to the demon analogy, it did feel a bit like being possessed: I knew the memoir was supposed to be out in the world; I had no doubts and so I was single-mindedly focused on that goal until suddenly…the memoir was actually going to be out in the world. Readable by all, including the ex-husband it was about and both of our families. 

It started to feel very real when I had a call with my publisher’s in-house attorney who told me which parts we needed to take out and asked me for documentation of everything that happened. I sent an email with a zip file later that week. I remember vacillating between being absolutely terrified of what my ex might do upon learning about the memoir and thrilled that my story might help someone going through the very same thing that I had gone through—I hoped it would be a life boat in the storm. 

There was a night a few months before pub date, and only a few weeks before my publisher would start promoting the memoir, that I knew I had to “go public” with the fact that I had written a book about the end of my marriage. At that point, I had only told my close friends and family. I was scared that as soon as my ex-husband heard about it, he would…sue? Threaten me? Contact my publisher? I actually had no clue what he would do. There were many possibilities, none of them far-fetched. And yet, the book was coming out no matter what. So that night I wrote a Facebook post and set the audience to “public.” I went to bed feeling sick to my stomach and also slightly relieved that it was done. Whatever happened next, I would just have to face it. 

The next morning, I checked my Facebook. I scanned the notifications of people who had liked and commented on my announcement. My eyes stopped at one particular “like” that had occurred at 2am. My ex-husband. We weren’t friends on Facebook but I didn’t have him blocked either (another piece of legal advice). I took a moment to sit with what that “like” meant. I realized that his cheeky like most likely signaled that he found pleasure (or amusement?) in the attention the memoir would bring—no matter how negative. Perhaps it fed his ego, or maybe he just liked that I had spent months of my life dissecting him on the page. Either way, a profound sense of relief came with that “like.” He wasn’t going to come after me—he was going to enjoy this. 

What I didn’t expect, or account for, were the scathing reviews that came in from readers. All the trade reviews had been positive and so many first readers had loved the book (and then gone on to tell me about the narcissist or sociopath in her own life) that I thought either someone would read the book and it would resonate or it wouldn’t and they just wouldn’t get anything out of it. I didn’t realize the hatred that some would feel for the memoir. And I hated myself after reading some of the reviews. I have theories about this now, and obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I had a struck a chord in a way that I didn’t anticipate. I eventually stopped reading reviews, good or bad. I never developed a thick skin or the ability to not give a fuck. I felt every bad review deeply and let them fester under my skin. Unfortunately, for better or worse, I will always give an exhausting amount of fucks. 

While I never experienced the level of murderous vitriol that the author in THE HATERS faces (no spoilers but there is a dead body or two in Harding’s novel), I did not anticipate how much those one star reviews would sting. I had been so terrified about one specific outcome that never came to be, spent hours anxiously contemplating what my ex-husband might do to me and my daughter once he found out what I’d written, and yet in the months post-publication, it was an entirely different beast that I wrestled. 

Luckily, another author told me that it was ok to not have a thick skin, that my vulnerability translated to the page. That author? Robyn Harding.

Robyn & Jen, 2019