So what I write often has a profound impact on my life — and vice-versa.
My third vampire book was written while a dear friend of mine was dying, and I decided to have my main character go through some major PTSD and a crisis of conscience at the same time I was going through some pretty major emotional stuff. My faerie story, which is about 500 pages, took me about 9 months to write. The third vampire book — the PTSD one — took almost 3 years. And during the entire writing of the book, I had my main character struggling with her art. She couldn’t make art she liked, it was all too ugly, too real, too raw. I kept struggling with my book the same way, trying so hard to make it a little less me bleeding on the page. It wasn’t until the book was written that I saw the parallels, that Ian and I were going through something awfully similar, and that we were both creating art that reflected what was happening in our lives.
Sometimes it goes the other way, though.
I decided to write the back history of the love interest from the faerie story, Malthiar. He finds out when he’s about 13 that he’s half-human, and that his mother still lives on Earth. I’m still in the middle of writing this book, but it follows his adventures exploring his human side in a world he knows very little about. One of the things he decides he wants to do is find and meet his human mother, who he has no memory of.
I wrote myself some pretty extensive notes on their first meeting, which I haven’t written yet, just notes. Things the characters might say, how the meeting might go, emotions on both sides.
I literally wrote those notes to myself, then flipped from my word processor over to Facebook, where I sent a message to my half-sister who I had never spoken to or met before in my life.
It’s kind of a long story. My mom and father — yes, father, he was never a “dad” — never married, and they split up when I was just a baby. My father rarely bothered to send anything for child support, and only contacted me when I was 11 years old. I’m pretty sure my stepmother had everything to do with him reaching out to me. She wanted kids, and was willing to “adopt” me in lieu of having her own. When I was 15, I got an envelope in the mail that contained several pictures of a baby and the name “Danielle” and a date on the back. I had a new little sister. My father and stepmother lived in California at the time, and my family lived in Minnesota, so seeing my new little sister wasn’t an option. And then my father’s real stripes started showing again, and he began treating me like an object he had a right to rather than a person, and I eventually cut contact with him.
When I was in my early thirties, I looked up Danielle on Google and found her Facebook profile, but she was still a minor, and to even send a message I had to prove I knew her, which I honestly didn’t. I told myself I’d just wait til she was a little older and then I’d reach out, but I seriously started shaking when I thought about messaging her. I was also a little scared that she and my father might still be close, and that he might try to contact me through her, which I did not want, and I wasn’t interested in starting a family feud if my sister wanted me to be in touch with our father.
So I chickened out. And I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
My middle sister who I grew up with asked if I’d ever thought about contacting my other sister a few times, and I explained the chicken-shit thing, but that’s all the further that ever went.
So then a month or two ago. I’m writing notes to myself about how wonderful Malthiar’s reunion is going to be with his mom, and I just switch to Facebook and look up Danielle. I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t even notice that I had just written notes on a family reunion between two characters and was suddenly on my lost sister’s Facebook page. I was just there.
I looked for my father in her family members. He was not there. This gave me some courage.
Absolutely shaking, I sent her a message.
In about five seconds, there was a friend request from her sitting in my inbox. In about five more, I had accepted her friend request and had gotten a message back.
Our father started acting dick-ish to her, too, and she no longer speaks to him, and she was super excited to hear from me. We spent the whole day messaging back and forth on Facebook. She’s coming to visit me this fall. We both love cats. I write books and she writes poetry. We both sound like our moms but look like our father.
It wasn’t until I went to close my laptop down at the end of the day that I noticed I still had my notes open — and re-read that last of what I’d written to myself:
“After many adventures, Malthiar finally gets up the courage to contact his mother.”
So, my final question to you, after all my experiences, I’m still not sure — it seems to be a snake swallowing its own tail sort of thing:
Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life?
