To be a childhood abuse survivor is to exist without a voice.
Nobody hears when you tell them to stop. Nobody hears when you tell them why you’re crying.
The pain of being voiceless gets better, but the desire to be heard never goes away. It permeates one’s being like a curse that has settled into one’s DNA — “Until you get people to listen to you, you will never be whole.”
Sometimes you get people to listen to you, but it doesn’t break the spell. It never will, because it cannot erase the memory of adults saying, “Are you sure?” and shrugging off your story because you are a child and they are trusted more than you.
This is what mixes up with my feelings about getting published, and it has complicated my decisions about publishing. I want to be heard but I want to be true to my experience and ideals as well. The data from Kindle Scout doesn’t bode well for me. The last two days I’ve gotten less than 20 nominations a day; my writing doesn’t grab people. I have to accept this and go on.
My next step will be to self-publish this first work (despite the fact no one will likely not read it in the swamp of Kindle) and I'm probably going to quit querying. I then have to consider whether I will continue writing just for myself. Writing takes lots of time and I don’t have a muse to energize my soul right now, so my writing is up in the air.
So I hope you’ll stick with me and keep supporting me:
I appreciate your writing. I think it is difficult to know what people/publishers want, and trying to give them what they want isn't fulfilling either if you have to change what is satisfying to you about writing.
ReplyDeleteSigh. Exactly. Writers are actually told to write what they love, edit well, and the rest will follow. This is not actually the case. I will kindle publish Gaia's Hands, which is a quirky but well-written book, in case someone discovers it.
ReplyDelete