Why This Book Exists

As I’ve been finishing up beta edits to my nonfiction book, Forged in Fire: Writing Fiction to Heal, to send to my copyeditor before release day (omg!), I’ve been thinking a lot about how I got here. Not just the actual journey of turning the method into a book, but the way it evolved from my own desire to heal to becoming a method to using the method to help others, to then sharing that method. It’s been a wild ride.

I can still remember, very early on, telling someone I thought I trusted about the idea, and she said, “that will never work because people will want to focus on marketability and publication over writing to heal.” I disagreed. I knew others like me wanted to take to the page for more reasons than just “publication.” I knew there were people who understood the real power of healing that words could have for them.

Now that the time is nearly here to share the method with the world (in the broadest way possible), I wanted to share an excerpt from the introduction—a little behind the scenes of why this book exists. Enjoy, and keep your eyes peeled for the release in 2023!

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Why This Book Exists

I imagine you, dear reader, are hurting or feeling an emotional pain that has not gone away no matter what you've tried. Maybe you've hit a certain threshold where you think picking up books like this one might actually work. I know those feelings. I embodied those feelings. And while I can't make any promises to you, I can tell you that if you keep an open mind and go into the exercises within this book with a willingness to do the work, you will see a change. It may not be immediate. It may not be as much as you'd like, but I've been doing this work myself and with others for enough years now to know it will happen.

Here's my true belief: we are all creative creatures who make sense of our experiences, feelings, and the world through creation. When we are stunted or unable to create, we manifest that in many ways. Between feeling imprisoned in a cage of our own making, imprisoned by the society that surrounds us, or even imprisoned by our family and friends, we turn it inward and carry the shame and blame within ourselves. If we were able to create from a true and authentic place, what might happen? What doors could be unlocked? What truths may we discover?

I believe the key to those answers is within the creative process. We must be brave and courageous enough to do the work, though. It's not easy, and it's scary as hell, but what if allowing ourselves to come to the page wholly and completely could mean we begin to heal? What if we become more attuned to our true selves? What if the story we need to tell can help someone else heal?

These are not rhetorical questions. I literally asked myself these questions as I began working with trauma survivors using the Writing Fiction to Heal method. I yearned to know if others could reap the benefits of writing fiction if they approached it with the intention of healing. I wanted to see if they could find solace on a page of lies that served as the truth, just as I had done. What healing could be possible if I showed them the way? What I discovered in that process exceeded my expectations. The healing from my clients and colleagues as they worked through the method blew me away. Finally, I had the answers to my questions—but more than that, I knew it was something I had to share with others.

My Background

I was ten years old when I received my first rejection letter. It was a piece I sent to Highlights magazine about a girl whose teddy bear (that her father had given her) came to life in the middle of the night to soothe and comfort her. It was fiction, but it was also painfully clear that it was about my own father. I mean, the piece was titled “Daddy, Don't Leave!” My parents divorced when I was eight, and I struggled to make sense of it. This story was my attempt to soothe the wounds that children of divorce often face. The loss of the family unit, the emotional upheaval, the back-and-forth custody. As a child, I didn’t know why I was feeling so awful just that I simply was. So, even though the piece was rejected, I was elated to get any response at all. I'd done something very few people do in their entire lives, and I was proud of that. It also firmly cemented my belief that writing was a portal to a new and better world. A world where things didn't hurt quite as much because I made the rules.

While life normalized around me as I got older, when I was fourteen years old, a classmate I was close to died. His death was debated: suicide or accident? It didn't really matter because, at the end of the day, he was still gone. Still missed. Still left a gaping hole in the hearts of many. I wrote about that, too. But the story I found in my binder of stories was not one about him... not really. It was a story about the people who had surrounded that boy and chose to turn a blind eye to his pain. About the girls who never said a nice word to his face yet suddenly spoke so fondly of him after his death, and of how people turn tragedy into false narratives to gain attention and use death as an excuse to focus the spotlight on themselves.

In high school, I was fortunate enough to take a creative writing class from a teacher that changed the trajectory of my writing life. She was (and still is) the kind of teacher that invites students into her world of teaching in a genuine and caring way. I always felt safe with her in a way that didn't exist outside her classroom. As Ms. Kelley’s student, I could be me. I could write freely and express myself fully. And it was in her creative writing class that I wrote a story about a girl who was hopelessly in love with her best friend. That story (much like all my stories) was reality turned fiction. It gave me an outlet for all the angsty yearning I felt I couldn't get out in any other way. Honestly, though, it was Ms. Kelley's comments in the margins of that story that changed me. Her insistence that I had something special within the story. I had written something that touched her, and she felt the yearning come off the page. It was the first time in my young adult life that someone could see what I felt when I wrote. I credit Ms. Kelley for being the catalyst of my entire writing career. If she hadn't given me the courage to keep going, I'm not sure I would have. If she hadn't encouraged me to take it further... I probably wouldn't have. And as it happens, that 34/30 grade left an indelible mark on my heart.

Years later, I took what Ms. Kelley taught me and put it to use in a totally unexpected way. I published my first novel, The Right Kind of Wrong. The story centered around Kara and Vince, two young people desperate to move forward with their lives, only to find themselves pulled back into painful remembrances of a family’s hidden past. The book was my fictionalized version of my grandfather’s story. My grandfather served in World War II and never hesitated to talk about particular aspects of that part of his life. I always knew there were deeper and more intricate experiences of his time in the war (as is true with any veteran who has served in the military), but he never talked about those things. Shortly before he passed, he talked to me about writing his story. I think he wanted a more historical, nonfiction approach to it, but that wasn't something I wanted or could have done. Instead, I combined aspects of his reality, one I would never be able to totally make sense of, with a narrative that felt more familiar and universal. What I ended up with were seventy-thousand words that brought both healing and understanding to myself and the legacy of a war vet.

All these personal anecdotes serve as reminders that we are always telling stories. As one of my mentors Colette Baron-Reid, says, “We are all stories in motion.” It also serves as a touchpoint for why writing this book is so important and personal to me. I want to be clear that I'm not writing this book because I know more than others. I'm not writing this book because I believe this is the only and most valid way to heal. And more importantly, I'm not writing this book because I'm the only one that can. I wrote this book for you. I wrote it for me. I wrote it for us. Because we all have a story.

And the world needs more stories like ours.

I want to honor the villages, circles, and collaborative processes that have given me the resources to heal through fiction writing. I want to write this book because writing fiction to heal saved my life, and if there's even the slightest chance that it can help save someone else's, I want it to exist and be a resource for them.

Overview of the Book

Writing Fiction to Heal is a method of discovery. The end goal isn’t necessarily to produce a book, rather to experience transformation and healing. You will find very little advice on the craft of writing in this book and only introductory information about publishing. That is not the purpose of the book you hold in your hands. The purpose is the journey. The purpose is to take the exercises as lifelines turning that deep, emotional whirlwind you feel caught up in and giving it to the page in a way that serves as a mirror for your soul and your healing. You do not need to identify as a writer to use this method. You don't even need to have had the desire to write a book before now to use this method. All that matters as you read this book and approach the exercises is this: be open to experiencing whatever comes because that is as much part of the process as what ends up on the page.

I will ask you, dear reader, on more than one occasion to reach into the depths of your pain and pull it out to put on the page. I know I'm asking a lot of you. But I also know that you're capable of doing it. Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever mindset you're in. You can do this. I've watched hundreds of writers do it over my years of working with them. I'm confident in this. You. Can. Do. This. And if it helps, think of this paragraph as your permission slip to go there. To the places in your heart that have cobwebs and cracks. You have permission to write about it all. The horrors and the light. The trauma and the recovery. This process invites all of you to the page. It doesn't discriminate or judge, rather it will hold you with its understanding. And I, too, dear reader, will hold you through this process as much as I can.

How to Read This Book

Over the course of this book, I will tell you personal stories and stories from other creators. I’ll show you case studies to demonstrate the theme of each chapter, as well as the theory behind the theme. Then I will ask you to do the work too. But I want to be clear, everything (as another one of my mentors Danielle Dulsky would say) is an invitation. I invite you to approach each chapter with an open mind and an open heart.

Ideally, this process works best if you move through it linearly as each theme and chapter builds on the previous one. If it feels better for you to read it all through before attempting the exercises, or if you find yourself wishing to skip around, please do so.

My hope for you in reading this book and attempting the exercises is to develop a sense of what Writing Fiction to Heal can do for you personally. I've witnessed the immense value and benefit of these exercises not only in my own experience but in working with others, and I sincerely hope that you, too, can find some comfort in these pages and on your own pages.

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I hope this sneak peek helped give you a sense of how much this book and the method means to me and how valuable and helpful it can be for anyone wishing to harness the power of words to heal. Release date, pre-sales and more information to come soon!