A World Without You

Q&A Part 23: Writing the personal

@Callabare asks: Was it hard to write something so personal, or more of a release?

You know, at the time, it was really, really hard. (I was also pregnant while writing, so emotions were running high!) I didn't want to write something so personal, so there was an internal struggle there, and I fought it every step of the way. 

There was also a lot of fear involved. Phoebe is very similar to me; what if people hated her? She definitely was selfish and unsympathetic at times, but it was also true, and I couldn't compromise that. And Bo's diagnoses are not really true--they're fictionalized and made to fit in the story. I had to do it for the story, but I didn't want to cause harm, you know? Whenever you tell something true, there's fear; whenever you tell something fiction, there's fear. So writing this close to something this personal compounded those fears tenfold. 

I think it was because I was pregnant that, by the end, the writing was more of a release. Because there were a lot of different fears wrapped up with the pregnancy. And a major fear of mine was that my baby would end up with similar diagnoses as my brother had. Honestly, that's one reason why we waited to have a baby, and why I only want to have one child. But as I was writing, I was forced to see the world through Bo's eyes, and by consequence, through my brother's. It gave me a deeper...if not understanding, empathy, for the way things happened in the past, and it definitely gave me a hope for the future.