Girl in Pieces, by Kathleen Glasgow, starts out with a nameless, silent girl in a mental hospital sharing her mental observations. Silent Sue, one of the other patients calls her. All the women on this floor are the self-harmers, the NSSI--Non Suicidal Self Injury, the cutters and burners.
We learn her story is small slices--the chapters are short, some a single paragraph. But the author's ability to pack so much information, characterization and emotion into the each sentence is one of the things that makes this novel so great.
Left on the lawn of a hospital, freezing and bleeding to death, her own story comes back to her in pieces. Charlie begins to open to her doctors and fellow patients as she begins to remember who she is and what happened.
I felt her anxiety as she has to leave the safety of the hospital and enter the public world in the care of her mother whom she fears.
That's all the plot I will share, because the discovery of herself and of her capacities, scraping away the surface and finding the abuses and fears below is what kept me reading, (or listening in my case).
I have written a novel where my main character is a teenage girl who cuts. It's science fiction, set 800 years in the future and I've shared some of the chapters on my blog. I've written it as "the other", as it is called in literature--writing from another's point of view, position of experience, not having lived it myself. I hurt for these girls, and the growing number of boys, who have suffered so much at their own hands, whose only break from depression and anxiety is to create their own physical pain. I wanted to say something that would bring their plight more awareness.
Kathleen Glasgow comes at this novel, not as the other, but as the person who has experienced this life first hand and hearing her own words at the end of the audio version brought the impact of the novel to an even deeper level to me.
I loved this story for the author's beautiful, some call it poetic, writing. For Charlie's ceaseless striving for acceptance and love, and her eternal struggle to overcome her weaknesses and doubts.
Note: This novel contains strong language, violence, and sexual situations.
NSSI
Something else that didn't work...Channillo.com
Last March I started posting a serialized version of a story I've worked on for years, actually two of them, that are set in the Galactic Battle Base environment. I posted a weekly chapter on Channillo.com. They were a new site that 'promised' to bring readers who were interested in following serialized literature.
Long story short...it didn't work for me. After seventeen weeks of posting a chapter each Sunday, I went from having four subscribers to two. I asked for analytics of how many people visited the site, clicked on my chapter descriptions, etc, but was told they wouldn't make that available.
My story, "Trigger Warnings" is about several of the inhabitants of the galactic battle base who suffer from some kind of mental or emotional, even physical, trauma and the mental challenges they have dealing with that. The main character cuts herself, (Non-Suicidal Self Injury - NSSI), and the boy she's falling for was a victim of childhood sexual abuse. (Note: There is no graphic content, but these are mature themes.)
I feel this is an important story and I was hoping to reach new audiences with it.
I've taken it off of Channillo and created another blog on this site where I will post chapters on a mostly weekly basis. The first chapter is up, if you're interested.
pec
Where I'm at today.
I'm participating in the Clarion Write-a-thon. It's longer than Nanowrimo by ten days so I thought that setting a writing goal of 60k words would be easy. Turns out I may not reach my goal. I have written every day, but haven't gotten signed into the website every day. I'm at 52K words, but I've finished writing my novel. I was already at 22k when I started the write-a-thon and this draft stands at about 68K. It's more finished than any other first draft I've done--but then, it's not really my first draft. I wrote the story for Nanowrimo in 2010. I did change it a lot from the original draft. I also changed it in a major way from how I outlined it this time.
Two weeks back Dave Farland ran a special on his MyStoryDoctor.com classes. I couldn't resist and signed up for Story Mastery 1 and I'm really enjoying it. It's helping me focus on the many things I skip over when I write because I'm in such a hurry to get through the plot to the end. All the exercises I'm doing in this course, I'm applying to this Battle Base book, so that on my next edit I can really improve it.
I'm applying all the words I write in the exercises to my word goal, but I'll still be a couple thousand short.
Anyway. Things are looking up.
Flypaper Boy is back from the editor and Dan Absolonsen is working on the cover art for it.
Shooting Stars is still with the editor and Rebekah Durhey is working on the cover for that one.
The Galactic Battle Base is done with the first manuscript and waiting on me to go over the edits of Flypaper before I do my next pass. I hope to send GBB to Winston Crutchfield by October. My working title for that one has always been, "Galactic Battle Base: The Knife Cuts Two Ways". My protagonist is a girl who cuts herself, (Non Suicidal Self Injury - NSSI). I'm thinking of changing it to "GBB: Trigger Warning."
So the plan is still self publishing three novels by the end of the year.
I've started listening to the Self Publishing Podcast by the authors of the book, "Write, Publish, Repeat". I believe what they are saying that the way to really grow a writing business is to write a series with a compelling first book. All three of my novels are firsts in a series, and GBB is a serial with stories all taking place on the Base, but with different people most the time. I say this because November is creeping up on us all and I want to use Nanowrimo to knock out my "Next in a Series" to follow up something I've published. I'll need to outline it in October.
Next year, while my 2014 Nano is simmering, I want to do my first edit of the 2013 Nano, "The Pariah". So those are the two novels for publishing next year, The Pariah and Something Part 2.
Depression, cutting, suicide and writing.
My Galactic Battle Base story I'm writing right now is about a 16 year old girl who cuts herself and her boyfriend who deals drugs and was the victim of childhood sexual abuse. (And a creature who wants to feed off of them.)
My background research is mainly on a Tumblr blog where I follow a lot of depressed teens who cut, have eating disorders, and consider suicide. Everything they post is mostly black with white writing.
Talking with Lisa Carroll Peterson the other day, she pointed out that the Gay Mantra "It gets better" applies to them as well. If they could just make it through the next ten years they will find themselves in a niche of friends, jobs, and activities where they feel accepted for who they are.
I believe what they need to do to feel better about themselves, and thus survive early adulthood, is find a way to serve other people. Sacrificing yourself to help another is the only way to find self esteem.
However, if your problem is co-dependence, have a therapist help you find a way to serve.