May 11, 2025 • 46 mins
Amra explores how our deepest wounds can be transformed through writing, sharing personal stories about growing up with a mother who had bipolar disorder and how that shaped her storytelling journey.
• Writing from trauma connects readers with universal experiences and emotions
• Memoir writing requires decisions about what to share and when you're ready to reveal personal stories
• Fiction provides "plausible deniability" while still allowing emotional truth to emerge
• Writing through trauma should ultimately help healing, not make things worse
• Take breaks, find trusted readers, and develop grounding rituals when writing difficult material
• Your personal story may connect with readers in unexpected and meaningful ways
Find episode handouts and how-to guides at amrahpayalich.com/podcast. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this episode - connect with me on social media and let me know how your writing journey is going.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Amra's Armchair Anecdotes.
I'm Amra Payalich, writer,teacher and storyteller.
Pull up a chair and let's diveinto stories about writing, life
and lessons learned, sharingwisdom from my armchair to yours
.
You can find the episode shownotes, your free episode
(00:22):
handouts and my how-to guides atamrahpayalichcom slash podcast.
And now it's time to dive in.
Welcome to Amrah's ArmchairAnecdotes.
And today I'm talking about thepower of writing through wounds
and how trauma shapes storiesshapes stories.
(00:42):
So I think for me, everythingthat I write initially sort of
started with a wound, withsomething that I wanted to
process and I wanted to share.
And through the sharing of mystory, I'm sort of opening up a
conversation with the reader whoreads that, and I think that we
(01:04):
read things that we need at thetime and it helps us think
about things.
Whenever I'm going through atime in my life where I am
reaching some sort of atransformation, some sort of an
evolution, and I can feel ashift within myself, I find
myself searching for things toread around that experience, and
(01:26):
I think that's true for mostpeople.
We are searching for fiction ornonfiction or just writing in
general that speaks to somethingthat we are going through and
that is going to help us in someway.
And I've found that that issort of my superpower, that I
can write dark, that I canreally explore that stuff and
(01:47):
over the you know, three decadesthat I have been a writer and
the two decades that I'vededicated myself to being a
professional writer, I've sortof discovered that's a little
bit of a superpower.
It's a little bit of asuperpower.
(02:09):
A lot of people sort ofstruggle with trauma and you
know, sometimes people you knowdon't know how to respond to it,
and so books and writing giveus that space, give us that
opportunity to engage withthings that we need and I find
that, you know, it's a greattool for connection and
connecting people.
So it is hard writing fromtrauma.
(02:30):
It is very hard, it can betransformative, it can be
cathartic and healing, but it isstill scrubbing work.
So I'm going to share some tipsabout writing from wounds or
from trauma and ways that it canhelp support you.
(02:52):
So first I sort of need todefine what I mean by wounds.
So it's emotional experiencesthat linger with us the moments
of hurt, vulnerability orupheaval.
The moments of hurt,vulnerability or upheaval For me
, my first wounds were having mymother, who was a bipolar
sufferer and the experience ofgrowing up with that and in that
(03:16):
environment, and then also thecomplicated relationship with my
mother, and that still verymuch influences my writing, just
in different ways, because nowsome of those wounds have healed
and so I'm writing from theother side, where I'm writing as
a mother who has a secureattachment with her daughter,
(03:38):
whereas for most of my life Iwas writing from the perspective
of the daughter who issuffering this pain and this
difficulty.
So why should we write fromwounds?
So it's not just about dwellingin the pain, it's about
understanding it.
It's about writing thatpersonal and finding the
(04:01):
universal, because when we shareit, you know readers see
themselves in it and it givesthem the opportunity to work
through things.
And sometimes we read thingsand even though we understand
the trauma behind it, weunderstand the experience behind
it.
It's not until we go through itourselves that we have that
(04:22):
even deeper layer of meaning,that we have that even deeper
layer of meaning.
I remember reading the memoirWild and it was about the
experience of losing her motherwhen she was very young and
there was this scene where whenshe gets her mother's ashes, she
(04:42):
eats them, and I felt thatscene so viscerally when I read
it and then when I watched it.
And then about five years ago Ilost my own mother and when she
passed I went back to her housein the morning and I went and
(05:02):
lay in her bed and in her sheetsand I breathed them in and I
just was in that moment, youknow, feeling those last moments
with her, and that gave me thatdeeper understanding of that
scene where, when you'reexperiencing that profound loss,
(05:23):
there's something within youwhere you need to grab it, you
need to connect with the personthat you lost.
And so that scene comes back tome every once in a while.
And that moment of the dayafter my mother passed away,
(05:44):
going into her house and lyingin her bed and feeling that loss
, it connects me with thatwriter even more.
And so it's just fascinatinghow we make those connections,
those visceral connections, withother trauma.
So I'm going to talk about thisfrom three perspectives writing
(06:10):
wounds in memoir, then writingin fiction and then some tips
and tricks for staying grounded.
And I just wanted to flag thatnot many people can write from
wounds.
It can be uncomfortable forpeople to read, and those of us
(06:30):
who can, who can be honest inthat way and who can be
vulnerable in that way.
It is a superpower and it issomething that you know we need
to do and something that we needto bring to the table.
You know we need to do andsomething that we need to bring
to the table.
So, memoir, um, it's really,you know, a genre of scars.
(06:51):
It's about naming what hurt andhow we survived.
But you don't owe your trauma onthe page.
You decide how much you shareand what you want to share and
you decide how you want to, in asense, conceptualize that.
What is the story that you wantto tell and where do you want
(07:14):
to draw the line?
So, when I was writing mymemoir about growing up with a
mother who had bipolar, I didwant to show the trauma of
having a parent who is mentallyill and who has lowered
inhibitions, some of the hurtfulmoments that can happen and the
(07:37):
things that they can say.
But there were also some thingsthat I did not share.
But there were also some thingsthat I did not share because I
wanted to protect my mother,because I didn't want to show
her as this horrible person,because, at the end of the day,
she was battling a mentalillness and she could not be
(07:59):
held responsible fully for whatshe did.
And so I wanted to tell thisstory and share what it was like
for me, but also show it fromher perspective and not be cruel
, not be vicious in my approach.
And so you need to make thatdecision for yourself in your
(08:19):
memoir what it is that you arewanting to share and where you
want to draw the line.
And sometimes those stories youdon't want to tell them at that
time, but you can tell themlater.
And so I do feel like I haveanother memoir in me and I do
think I have a memoir about thecomplex relationship
(08:43):
mother-daughter relationshipthat I had and the way that
mental illness shaped that withmy mother.
And I can tell that story morenow for a few reasons One, I'm
older, but two, and mostimportantly is she's no longer
with me and so I can tell thatstory and not worry about
(09:06):
hurting her.
It's not a story I wanted totell while she was with me.
I wanted her to have thatmemoir as a celebration of her
life and as a celebration of hertriumph in, you know,
prevailing and still living andpushing with this illness that
was constantly holding her backand even though now, in one
(09:29):
sense you know, telling thatstory, it might be seen as being
hurtful to her and to hermemory, but it's more about
really acknowledging thecomplexity of that relationship
and the different stages thatyou go through and basically how
, when your parents you know, inmy instance, when my mother had
(09:53):
that illness, it meant that shewas never truly available as a
parent to me, where I was neverthe first port of call or the
first person that she thoughtabout.
She was never able to put mefirst.
And that's one of the thingsthat I think is really important
(10:15):
as a parent and to, you know,be a good parent.
Anyone can give birth.
Anyone can, you know,impregnate someone.
But being a parent is abouttruly trying to be unselfish and
to put your child's needs first.
And my mother was never able todo that, and it's not because
(10:38):
of the limitations of who shewas, it was because of the
illness, because of bipolar.
She was always self-centered,always focused on herself,
centered, always focused onherself.
And I'm not saying that I don'tdo that.
I'm, you know, I have a veryrich, um, professional life and
(10:59):
personal life, and that's notwhat parenting is.
But when it comes to makingdecisions, when it comes to
thinking about my life, mydaughter is still the one that I
put at the center of that, andso I do make decisions that are
about her, and for me that'sbeen a healing thing.
(11:19):
But it is something that I dowant to explore in another
memoir, and so sometimes, whenwe write memoir, we might not be
able to tell everything in theunvarnished way that we want to,
but there's always the nextmemoir and the next story that
we can tell.
So when we are writing a memoir, some things that we need to
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think about is what was theemotional journey, what changed
and what is the why abouttelling this story?
So with me I had written mydebut novel, which was me trying
to sort of tell my personalstory, but I could not actually
(12:01):
write a memoir at that time inmy life.
I started writing that when Iwas 25 years old and it was
eventually published when I was32.
So you know, obviously a verylong lead time, but that was not
a time in my life when I coulddo it.
I started writing my memoirafter I had my daughter and I
felt like I sort of had PTSDbecause it was bringing back all
(12:23):
these memories of my childhoodand I was going through all
these different emotions where Iwas like judging my mother and
I was angry with her aboutcertain things that happened.
And then I got postnataldepression and I just reached
the other side, where I realizedhow hard my mother did have it
being, you know, 15 year oldbride, being a 16 year old
(12:46):
mother and becoming a mentalpatient within months of giving
birth, and so it gave me a verydifferent perspective and it
gave me a very different writingof that memoir.
I actually wrote it numeroustimes in a different stages of
my life.
I had a very differentperspective on it, but it was
very difficult to write.
(13:07):
There were a lot of hardmoments.
There was therapy I did have togo into therapy, I did have to
take breaks and, as I saidearlier, I did need to think
about what is the story I wantedto tell and how did I want to
package that.
And so there were some storiesthat I did soften or some
(13:28):
stories that I told a differentperspective, and perhaps when I
write my next memoir, I mightrevisit those or I might not.
You know, it depends on whatI'm wanting to explore in that
particular story, and so youknow, that's the other thing
that happens when you're writingabout yourself.
As you go through differentexperiences, as you age, as you
(13:51):
evolve, your perspective evolvesalso in that way, which is
quite amazing.
And so I think that there isalso something about going back
and revisiting stories thatwe've told previously and
telling them from that differentperspective and, in a sense,
sharing that evolution that wehave and the way that we
transform, because I think thereis something quite beautiful
(14:14):
about that, about having theopportunity to gain wisdom.
My mother died when she was 66,which is very, very young, and
you know she also.
She was very wise in some ways,but she was also quite limited
because of the mental illnessand because of the electric
(14:36):
shocks therapy that she wassubjected to, and so there were
certain things that she wasnever able to evolve in.
So I very much treasure thatand am very grateful for that
and love that as a concept interms of thinking about our
lives and thinking about what weare writing about.
So I think what I would sayabout writing a memoir is that
(15:01):
you do need to have someperspective on it.
It might help you to write itwhile you are in the midst of it
, in terms of making notes ordoing journal entries, I would
encourage you to think aboutmaybe not publishing those and
not putting them out in a publicforum, because when you are in
(15:22):
those moments of deepvulnerability and deep pain, you
know you're actually not fullythere.
I felt like after I lost mymother, I did actually lose my
mind for a while.
I was not cognitivelyfunctioning in a way that you
(15:43):
know was normal.
I remember going to a meetingwith my PhD supervisors and
having this conversation andit's kind of blank.
I don't really have very clearmemories, but I do remember that
they looked at each other.
There was this moment when theylooked at each other and they
said we think you need to take abreak, we think we need a leave
(16:05):
of absence.
And while I don't have muchclarity about that conversation,
I do remember that I was justnot able to think, I was not
able to connect things.
I don't think I could evenremember the name of the book I
was writing, and so those deepmoments of trauma, they do make
(16:27):
it difficult to think andsometimes you are kind of in an
altered space.
I know I certainly was.
I had to take sleeping pillsjust to be able to function and
just to be able to not go intobasically a nervous breakdown.
And so after my mother's passingand during that period, I was
(16:51):
writing things in a diary and Ido have notes.
And there is a night that is ahorrible night that I had with
my mother during her breakdownand I do want to write about
those things and it was goodthat I took those notes and that
I've got that record.
(17:12):
But to write it for publication, to actually share it at that
time, no, no, that would nothave been a good thing.
And so I would encourage anyonewho's going through those
experiences take notes, journal,keep the memory, because, also,
you will forget, because traumadoes sort of.
(17:33):
It depends on how your brainprocesses, but for me, I
disassociate, I block, I justkind of go.
Things go black.
In moments of very heightenedemotion, I leave, I'm not here,
and so I think that you knowhaving that, that jotting down,
(17:55):
and that remembering, is good,but think about whether you want
to um publish that and do thatfrom the perspective of when you
are, when you've processed it.
So I think it's reallyimportant to not write when it's
you know, know an active word,and also the way that you know
is, if you are trying to writeabout it and it's actually
(18:18):
making it worse, then that'ssomething that you need to pause
, because I really believe thatwriting should make it better.
And I remember when I waswriting my memoir and it was
getting worse and I was going toa bad place, I had to stop.
I went to counselling, I wroteother things, I took a break, I
(18:42):
skipped some of those sections,I continued on and then, when I
felt stronger and I had someclarity, I went back.
So those are the things that weneed to think about in terms of
writing about wounds and how dowe deal with it.
So I'm going to move on tofiction now.
And how do we do this infiction?
So we're channeling the wound,we're not recreating it.
(19:06):
So sometimes maybe there'ssomething that you do want to
write about and it's safer to doit in fiction, it's safer to
disguise it.
So it gives us that distanceand it still lets us bleed
through with that emotionaltruth, but it keeps us safe, and
(19:26):
so that's what I did with mydebut novel.
I could not write it as a memoirat that point.
I could not share the story, amemoir at that point I could not
share the story of what it waslike truly to have a parent who,
you know, was bipolar, and someof the things that I went
through when I was a child,really traumatic things, and so
I needed time and space.
(19:47):
But having written that firstbook as fiction did sort of help
me clarify, it did help meclean out certain memories, it
did help me contextualizecertain experiences and it did
help me understand.
And so then, when I was goingback and writing it as a memoir,
I was then able to use all ofthose lessons.
(20:12):
So you know, see how it'sworking for you.
So when you are writing fictionand you are wanting to explore
your wounds, think about theemotion that you are exploring,
what part of you is yourcharacter expressing and how can
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you write honestly, even if thedetails are invented.
So you're bringing some ofyourself into that story, but
you're still keeping yourselfsafe.
So with Sabir's Dilemma, whichis the fiction version of my
life, it was writing about beingin both worlds and that was
(20:56):
sort of the main story, eventhough it was about being
parented by a mother frombipolar.
I was sort of looking at beingof a migrant background, being
in Australia and theintersection between the two.
So that's the angle that I sortof took with that.
And then, you know, I look atmy freelance writing and I have
(21:19):
also written from wounds there,wounds that you know had healed,
but things that I still feltthat I needed to explore.
So one of the articles that Iwrote for the Age was about I
had to marry into my faith butmy daughter doesn't, and I was
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going through this experience oftalking to young people my age.
I live in the suburb of StAlbans, it's where I grew up,
it's where I teach and I teachyoung people who are, like
myself, the children of migrants, and who are caught between
those worlds of living up to theexpectations of their parents
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and the culture, but also beingin Australia and sort of having
these opportunities.
And one of the things that wascoming up was this resistance to
relationships that were acrossreligious boundaries, ethnic
boundaries, cross-culturalrelationships, and so one of the
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things that I could speak to mystudents about was
understanding that, thankfully,my love story and my
relationship worked out well.
I fell in love and married aman who was of Bosnian Muslim
background, like me, and itwasn't an arranged marriage or
(22:44):
anything like that.
We did meet and we did fall inlove, but there is an element of
I knew what my family was likeand I knew that at that time if
I did have a cross-culturalrelationship, I would not have a
relationship with my family,and so they were that did
(23:06):
influence my thinking and thatit did influence, in a sense,
what I looked for in a partner.
Um, even though it was verysubconscious and I was 19 when I
met and married my, it allhappened very quickly crazy love
, but realizing that thatexperience still resonated with
(23:29):
people and was something thatpeople were going through.
But then also from theperspective of a mother who I
never put that pressure on mydaughter and my husband does not
put that pressure on mydaughter, we have always had
conversations about you maymarry a girl, you may marry a
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boy, you may love someone who is, you know of our background,
you may not.
We have never put any of thatonto her and that's one thing
that I'm really happy aboutwe've always been on the same
page about and it's becausegrowing up in that background
and having that message andknowing that your parents love
(24:15):
has limitations, that they willonly love you as long as you
meet their expectations, as longas you meet what they want from
you.
It is actually a little souldestroying.
It does affect you, and it didaffect me for a long time,
because when you are loved withlimitations and with boundaries,
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it does affect your self-worthand it takes a long time to
process and deal with that andto think that you are worthy of
more than those limitations andthose constraints, and so that's
something that I wanted mydaughter to grow up with.
I wanted her to grow up in anenvironment of unlimited love,
(24:59):
of there is nothing that you canever do or say and you will not
be loved.
I mean, obviously you know, um,I hope that she is law-abiding
and moral and ethical, um, butin terms of you know, those sort
of expectations about how youshould behave or who you should
(25:20):
be, that's not something Iwanted to put on her, and so,
know, writing this article gaveme the opportunity to express
that, and I remember the lastline was something like not
everyone, you know, those of uswho grew up with this, we know
what the price is, and when Iwas writing that article, I was
(25:43):
writing it for these youngpeople, these young students
that I knew that I was talkingto, that I could see that pain
in their eyes and I wanted toacknowledge and validate them.
And so in that way I was takingmy trauma and my pain but I was
wanting to connect it for otherpeople and I was also sort of
(26:05):
wanting to open up that dialogue, because some people who don't
grow up in these backgrounds,who don't grow up and with these
sort of family expectations,they don't understand it.
They're like you can marrywhoever you want.
You are living in Australia,yes, you can.
But will you have your family?
Will you have that relationship, or will that cause a tear in
(26:28):
the fabric of that relationship?
Can you bear it?
Can you go through thatexperience and live with that
tear and with that loss and thedestruction that that will bring
to your spirit and to yourheart?
And so I also wanted to sort offlag that and flag that.
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Yes, that's wonderful if youcome from that sort of a family
background.
It's wonderful for my daughterthat she's got two parents who
went through a lot of thesethings and who are making
different decisions for her.
But unfortunately there are alot of people who are still in
that position.
So fiction can sort of give youthat opportunity to share those
(27:14):
stories and to write a narrativeabout what you want to talk
about, but creating thosearchetypes and creating
characters that give youplausible deniability.
So when my aunt read Sabiha'sDilemma, she said, oh, the aunt
(27:34):
is a little bit like me, butshe's not.
And the grandfather is a littlebit like me, but he's not Like
you.
Know my grandfather, but he'snot.
And Sabiha's a little bit likeyou, but he's not like you know
my grandfather, but he's not.
And so behaves a little bitlike you but she's not.
And that's plausibledeniability, where you are able
to create the character whereit's got some of the
(27:55):
characteristics of what you wantto explore.
But you have given yourselfenough plausible deniability.
There's something else that youcan do in terms of writing
fiction.
You can, you know, use thewounds and create relatable
characters.
So I think that when we arecreating a character that has
(28:17):
that deep emotional journey andthat is in that state of
transformation, it can really,really add depth.
And so you're using their flaws, their pain and their journey.
So the novel that I am going tobe publishing soon, that is the
first book in my series and thatis my thesis book.
(28:39):
Um, my protagonist is Seika.
I created her wound as theguilt of surviving when so many
others didn't.
So Seika is in a war zone, andit's about her trying to retain
her morality and her goodnesswhen survival is all that
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matters and life is just abouttrying to survive.
And then the continuation ofthat is the survivor journey and
how you have that survivor'sguilt and what do you do with it
.
And then eventually, as theseries goes on, it's about her
(29:24):
learning to use her wounds interms of trying to find justice
and finding meaning within that.
And so it's been reallyinteresting how this character
has evolved as the seriesevolved, has evolved, and it's
given me the opportunity to sortof explore different things.
I mean, it's so weird becauseI'm the writer, so I've created
(29:46):
this character and I've createdthis world, but then in another
way, as you keep writing anddeveloping a world, it sort of
takes a life of its own and itfeels like the character is
talking to you and the characteris leading you into this, and
so even the way that I'm talkingabout it, I find it really
interesting.
And so, um, when you're thinkingabout writing fiction, uh,
(30:12):
something that you can do is youcan think of a moment in your
life when you felt vulnerable orhurt and imagine a character
with that same wound, and howwould they react to the world.
And so, um, seka, you know,while I have not been in a war
zone and I have not survived,that, in one sense my childhood
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and the upheaval of my childhooddoes reflect a little bit of
seka's reality, and so my traumafrom that goes into her and
then me, finding meaning withinthat trauma and finding a way of
making that trauma.
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You know, when that trauma isactually influencing my life, it
is becoming my drive.
That's something that I havealso used with Seika, so her
trauma has become her drive andher purpose.
And so I guess we're bothjoined by social justice, and
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that's something that Seika andI have in common.
And so, in that way, whileSeika is a different person to
me and we have not had the samelives, and it's sort of the
first time, in a sense, that I'mwriting a book and a character
that's completely outside of meif we don't count my romance
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novels, there's always a littlebit of you in everything that
you do.
And so when you go back to theheart of it.
You sort of see what is yourdna, what's your, what's your
blueprint in that.
So this is the way that fictioncan, you know, serve us.
It can serve us in those twoways, which is it gives us
(32:00):
plausible dinability where wecan explore a story that might
be too emotionally fraught formemoir, and we can also use what
we are going through and whatwe are feeling in our
experiences to create ourcharacters and give them that
big world and give them that bigdrive and characterization.
(32:22):
So now I wanted to talk abouttips and tricks for writing and
some practical tools that youcan use when you're writing
really hard, emotional things.
You know, write in sprints.
I mean, this works for any typeof writing.
I find that you know you'restruggling for time or you're
just struggling for motivation.
(32:42):
Writing sprints and going, okay, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 15
minutes it really kind of makesyou get things down on the page.
It pushes you past, uh, thatvoice in your head that might be
stopping you, that might bewanting to edit, um, that might
be, you know, being that thatdifficult voice that is, um,
(33:04):
self-sabotaging a little bit.
So doing sprints helps, but italso helps when you're writing
really emotional things, whereyou just try to get the words
out, you let your subconsciousdo the work and you see what is
there, because then you can sortof get out some of those things
, um, that don't have place inthe book.
(33:25):
So when I was writing my memoirand there were certain spots
where I was writing about thingsthat my mother did and my anger
would start overwhelming me andI would start judging her very
harshly and having this verynegative narrative in my head
towards her, I would do theventing, I would get it out on
(33:45):
the page, I would swear I wouldget all that judgment out and
then I would cull it and I wouldwrite it to try and let the
reader judge the action, notinsert my narrative, but give
the action and let the readerunderstand it, rather than
(34:08):
having my narration and havingmy anger there, um.
So I find that that helps havesome sort of a grounding ritual.
So you know, for some peoplethat might be lighting a candle,
playing music, um, going for awalk.
For me it's become my garden,doing my gardening, planting,
watering, being in the space,looking at my plants and then
(34:33):
also going for walks in the parkand really just sort of
breathing in and looking attrees and looking at greenery, I
find that I can just feel mybody relaxing.
I can feel it, the tense, tensejust leaving me, and also I
find that those moments of justletting your body rest and your
(34:57):
brain rest, you reset and thingsstart sort of clarifying and
you start getting that, thatmoments of clarity and going
okay, I know what I need to do.
I know what the problem isthere.
If you're writing scenes orsections where it's just too
hard, the emotions are gettingthe better of you, you're really
(35:19):
struggling use place seeplaceholders, um insert here and
just do a quick overview andmove on.
Come back to it at a time whenyou feel stronger, when you can
actually do that writing, whenyou can take that leap, when you
have had a conversation withsomeone who has helped you
(35:40):
clarify the emotion, or you'vehad a timeout and had your brain
have that opportunity toclarify that emotion and then
you can go back to it.
Another thing is you can keep ajournal beside your manuscript
and you can let yourself ventseparately.
So, depending on how you work,this could be, you know, be
(36:02):
where you are handwriting ajournal.
I used to do that for manyyears.
I actually still have them.
I've got a box of all thesejournals that I wrote over the
years.
I now find myself doing digitaljournals and it's more about
notes and things that I mightcome back to, and so that's
changed also.
So just find what works for you.
There's no right or wrong, it'swhatever the.
(36:24):
What works for you.
There's no right or wrong, it'swhatever the process is for you
.
Find a trusted reader or atherapist, especially if you're
writing memoir.
As I said, I did have to go totherapy to sort of take a time
out and deal with some things.
I also have friends who havebeen with me for decades, who
know everything about me and canreally be those trusted voices
(36:47):
that I can speak to, that I canvent, that I can get those
things out.
And the other thing that Iwould say is that you really
need to be careful who you getto read your work, especially at
this early stage, or who is theperson that you talk about,
(37:09):
because there are some peoplewho actually can't deal with
trauma and might struggle andmight negatively react and make
you feel bad about it.
So over the years when I've donememoir writing workshops, I
have had women come up to me andtalk to me about what they're
(37:29):
working on, and there were quitea few women who were working on
talking about sexual abuse thatthey had experienced as
children or somewhere later,later in life, and the
difficulty in writing about butalso being in writing groups and
sharing some of that writingand having really negative
(37:53):
experiences to that, and sosometimes some people can't deal
with what you're writing with.
So it's really important thatyou find the right people.
I actually remember one of theworkshops.
I had a conversation with onewoman and I had a conversation
with another woman and Irealized that they were having
(38:13):
the same sort of experiences,and so I brought them together
and I introduced them to eachother, um, and I said to them
the two of you have a lot totalk about, and so I'm hoping
that they were actually able tofind a connection and continue
that conversation with eachother and maybe develop a
(38:34):
critique partnership.
So when you are looking atsomeone reading your work,
that's important.
Think about the big picture.
So while every story ispersonal, there is a universal
message.
So when I was working on this,uh, fiction novel that is my war
book, it was very hard to writeat certain points in terms of
(38:58):
reading the research, readingabout the genocide, reading
about the atrocities that werecommitted in the war, the
hardships that people wentthrough, and I did have to take
breaks also with that.
But then I also had to sort ofstep away and I had to think
about what is it that I'm tryingto say?
What is the story that I'mtrying to tell?
Why do I have to go back and doit and then also think about
(39:23):
what is it that I could say thatwas unique about this story?
And so one of the things that Irealized that I had to bring
was this understanding of whatit was like in communism, in
communist Yugoslavia, and theway that the division in society
occurred between the urban andthe rural communities, so
(39:46):
between the people who lived inthe city and the people who
lived in the village.
My mother's side of the family,um, grew up, you know, I grew up
, um, in a village.
I lived for four years in whatwas yugoslavia with my
grandparents on a farm.
We did, did everything.
We had chickens, we had cowsthat we milked, we had a garden
(40:08):
that we harvested, we had wheatthat we used to reap and, you
know, get hay from, and just thewhole lot.
And I didn't really know aboutthese differences because I was
a child, but it was only when Iwas an adult and I married my
husband and I was talking to himand I realized he'd had a very
(40:32):
different upbringing and adifferent experience, because he
grew up in a city, so he grewup in Sarajevo, and his
experience in communistYugoslavia was very different.
And so when I was doing thisresearch for my thesis and for
this novel, that was somethingthat I came across that had an
(40:53):
impact in terms of how the warwas experienced in the town of
Srebrenica by the residents, andso that's something that I
wanted to share in my fictionand also something that
influenced my thesis.
And so while I felt, you know,I was doing this really
(41:14):
important story about writingabout a genocide that occurred
and about the danger of otheringand the danger of
discrimination, I was alsosharing a story that not many
people knew about and not manypeople understood, and so that
was something that gave me thatspace and that opportunity to,
(41:37):
you know, come back to it strongand refreshed and to keep going
, despite how difficult it wasat certain points.
The other thing is, take a timeout and write something else.
So you know, as I said, with mymemoir I took a time out.
I wrote romance novels.
Um, while working on this noveland this thesis, I took a time
(41:58):
out.
I wrote many freelance articles.
That sort of gave me theopportunity to write about
something else, to experiencesomething else, um, to still be
writing and moving forward but,um, to have a break from the
hard stuff so that I could thencome back refreshed and so
always sort of think about isthere other things that you can
(42:19):
take a break from?
And, you know, still flex yourwriting muscles, but give
yourself some space for healingand to refresh yourself.
So, when talking about writingfor healing and connection, you
(42:41):
know, writing wounds.
It's not just cathartic for youas a writer, it's healing for
the reader.
I've received some amazingmessages over the years from
people who have read my memoirand who have seen themselves
somehow in my memoir.
The two most amazing messageswere one was from a man who was
(43:04):
from a Muslim Bangladeshibackground and he read my memoir
and he related to my father whocommitted domestic violence
against my mother, and he saidhow he came to Australia with
the views that he brought fromhis culture, which was that you
(43:24):
were able to beat your wife andyour children and that he ended
up in the court system and thathe then had to learn to adapt to
the norms and the culture ofAustralia.
And I just thought it was sobrave and beautiful that he
actually wrote me that messageand that he was able to see that
.
But it also showed me howsometimes you think you're
(43:46):
writing one story, here you're,and you are the story that
you're telling, but other peoplemight see themselves in other
ways, and that the peopleconnections might make um could
be amazing.
You don't know what they are,and so those connections are
what matters.
Um.
And the second one was a manalso, and I was also surprised
(44:08):
about these male readers,because I thought I was writing
a book for women and I waswriting just about women's
experiences.
So that's the interesting thingtoo, in terms of, you know,
reading crosses all lines,gender lines, all the lines that
we could introduce.
(44:28):
And he was relating to mystepfather, because he had
struggled with the line betweenbeing a parent and being a
friend, and to do one you had tolose the other, and so that was
something else that he sawhimself in with my stepfather in
(44:49):
terms of my stepfather was veryconnected to the experience of
children and he was just a greatcompanion and we could relate
to him on that level.
But then, you know, if he triedto to parent us, we could not
see him in that way because wehad this relationship with him
(45:11):
that was more along thefriendship lines, because he was
just such a fun person.
He in a sense, did not havemuch of a childhood and so he
just loved spending time withchildren, um, and it was so
beautiful to watch him.
I'm so glad that my daughterhad that experience when she was
small, that she got to be withhim, um, and see a little bit of
(45:34):
that side of him.
So, um, you know when, whenwe're writing these words and
we're sharing these stories, weare also making these
connections that we don't knowwe might make.
So take heart from that.
So, finishing up, thank you forjoining me today's episode.
(45:57):
I hope, um, that it inspiresyou to embrace your wounds, to
find ways of using them in yourcraft, to have a deeper
appreciation for the couragethat it takes to put our hearts
on the page.
And, you know, I would love tohear from you in terms of
comments on the episode orconnect with me via social media
(46:19):
.
If you're curious about mywriting, head over to my website
, join my newsletter and untilnext time, please keep writing,
keep healing and remember everystory starts with a word, thank
you.
Thank you for tuning intoAmra's Armchair Anecdotes.
If you enjoyed today's episode,don't forget to subscribe and
(46:43):
follow for more insights,stories and inspiration from my
armchair to yours.
Remember every story beginswith a single word.
Welcome to Amra's Armchair Anecdotes.
I'm Amra Payalich, writer,teacher and storyteller.
Pull up a chair and let's diveinto stories about writing, life
and lessons learned, sharingwisdom from my armchair to yours
.
You can find the episode shownotes, your free episode
(00:22):
handouts and my how-to guides atamrahpayalichcom slash podcast.
And now it's time to dive in.
Welcome to Amrah's ArmchairAnecdotes.
And today I'm talking about thepower of writing through wounds
and how trauma shapes storiesshapes stories.
(00:42):
So I think for me, everythingthat I write initially sort of
started with a wound, withsomething that I wanted to
process and I wanted to share.
And through the sharing of mystory, I'm sort of opening up a
conversation with the reader whoreads that, and I think that we
(01:04):
read things that we need at thetime and it helps us think
about things.
Whenever I'm going through atime in my life where I am
reaching some sort of atransformation, some sort of an
evolution, and I can feel ashift within myself, I find
myself searching for things toread around that experience, and
(01:26):
I think that's true for mostpeople.
We are searching for fiction ornonfiction or just writing in
general that speaks to somethingthat we are going through and
that is going to help us in someway.
And I've found that that issort of my superpower, that I
can write dark, that I canreally explore that stuff and
(01:47):
over the you know, three decadesthat I have been a writer and
the two decades that I'vededicated myself to being a
professional writer, I've sortof discovered that's a little
bit of a superpower.
It's a little bit of asuperpower.
(02:09):
A lot of people sort ofstruggle with trauma and you
know, sometimes people you knowdon't know how to respond to it,
and so books and writing giveus that space, give us that
opportunity to engage withthings that we need and I find
that, you know, it's a greattool for connection and
connecting people.
So it is hard writing fromtrauma.
(02:30):
It is very hard, it can betransformative, it can be
cathartic and healing, but it isstill scrubbing work.
So I'm going to share some tipsabout writing from wounds or
from trauma and ways that it canhelp support you.
(02:52):
So first I sort of need todefine what I mean by wounds.
So it's emotional experiencesthat linger with us the moments
of hurt, vulnerability orupheaval.
The moments of hurt,vulnerability or upheaval For me
, my first wounds were having mymother, who was a bipolar
sufferer and the experience ofgrowing up with that and in that
(03:16):
environment, and then also thecomplicated relationship with my
mother, and that still verymuch influences my writing, just
in different ways, because nowsome of those wounds have healed
and so I'm writing from theother side, where I'm writing as
a mother who has a secureattachment with her daughter,
(03:38):
whereas for most of my life Iwas writing from the perspective
of the daughter who issuffering this pain and this
difficulty.
So why should we write fromwounds?
So it's not just about dwellingin the pain, it's about
understanding it.
It's about writing thatpersonal and finding the
(04:01):
universal, because when we shareit, you know readers see
themselves in it and it givesthem the opportunity to work
through things.
And sometimes we read thingsand even though we understand
the trauma behind it, weunderstand the experience behind
it.
It's not until we go through itourselves that we have that
(04:22):
even deeper layer of meaning,that we have that even deeper
layer of meaning.
I remember reading the memoirWild and it was about the
experience of losing her motherwhen she was very young and
there was this scene where whenshe gets her mother's ashes, she
(04:42):
eats them, and I felt thatscene so viscerally when I read
it and then when I watched it.
And then about five years ago Ilost my own mother and when she
passed I went back to her housein the morning and I went and
(05:02):
lay in her bed and in her sheetsand I breathed them in and I
just was in that moment, youknow, feeling those last moments
with her, and that gave me thatdeeper understanding of that
scene where, when you'reexperiencing that profound loss,
(05:23):
there's something within youwhere you need to grab it, you
need to connect with the personthat you lost.
And so that scene comes back tome every once in a while.
And that moment of the dayafter my mother passed away,
(05:44):
going into her house and lyingin her bed and feeling that loss
, it connects me with thatwriter even more.
And so it's just fascinatinghow we make those connections,
those visceral connections, withother trauma.
So I'm going to talk about thisfrom three perspectives writing
(06:10):
wounds in memoir, then writingin fiction and then some tips
and tricks for staying grounded.
And I just wanted to flag thatnot many people can write from
wounds.
It can be uncomfortable forpeople to read, and those of us
(06:30):
who can, who can be honest inthat way and who can be
vulnerable in that way.
It is a superpower and it issomething that you know we need
to do and something that we needto bring to the table.
You know we need to do andsomething that we need to bring
to the table.
So, memoir, um, it's really,you know, a genre of scars.
(06:51):
It's about naming what hurt andhow we survived.
But you don't owe your trauma onthe page.
You decide how much you shareand what you want to share and
you decide how you want to, in asense, conceptualize that.
What is the story that you wantto tell and where do you want
(07:14):
to draw the line?
So, when I was writing mymemoir about growing up with a
mother who had bipolar, I didwant to show the trauma of
having a parent who is mentallyill and who has lowered
inhibitions, some of the hurtfulmoments that can happen and the
(07:37):
things that they can say.
But there were also some thingsthat I did not share.
But there were also some thingsthat I did not share because I
wanted to protect my mother,because I didn't want to show
her as this horrible person,because, at the end of the day,
she was battling a mentalillness and she could not be
(07:59):
held responsible fully for whatshe did.
And so I wanted to tell thisstory and share what it was like
for me, but also show it fromher perspective and not be cruel
, not be vicious in my approach.
And so you need to make thatdecision for yourself in your
(08:19):
memoir what it is that you arewanting to share and where you
want to draw the line.
And sometimes those stories youdon't want to tell them at that
time, but you can tell themlater.
And so I do feel like I haveanother memoir in me and I do
think I have a memoir about thecomplex relationship
(08:43):
mother-daughter relationshipthat I had and the way that
mental illness shaped that withmy mother.
And I can tell that story morenow for a few reasons One, I'm
older, but two, and mostimportantly is she's no longer
with me and so I can tell thatstory and not worry about
(09:06):
hurting her.
It's not a story I wanted totell while she was with me.
I wanted her to have thatmemoir as a celebration of her
life and as a celebration of hertriumph in, you know,
prevailing and still living andpushing with this illness that
was constantly holding her backand even though now, in one
(09:29):
sense you know, telling thatstory, it might be seen as being
hurtful to her and to hermemory, but it's more about
really acknowledging thecomplexity of that relationship
and the different stages thatyou go through and basically how
, when your parents you know, inmy instance, when my mother had
(09:53):
that illness, it meant that shewas never truly available as a
parent to me, where I was neverthe first port of call or the
first person that she thoughtabout.
She was never able to put mefirst.
And that's one of the thingsthat I think is really important
(10:15):
as a parent and to, you know,be a good parent.
Anyone can give birth.
Anyone can, you know,impregnate someone.
But being a parent is abouttruly trying to be unselfish and
to put your child's needs first.
And my mother was never able todo that, and it's not because
(10:38):
of the limitations of who shewas, it was because of the
illness, because of bipolar.
She was always self-centered,always focused on herself,
centered, always focused onherself.
And I'm not saying that I don'tdo that.
I'm, you know, I have a veryrich, um, professional life and
(10:59):
personal life, and that's notwhat parenting is.
But when it comes to makingdecisions, when it comes to
thinking about my life, mydaughter is still the one that I
put at the center of that, andso I do make decisions that are
about her, and for me that'sbeen a healing thing.
(11:19):
But it is something that I dowant to explore in another
memoir, and so sometimes, whenwe write memoir, we might not be
able to tell everything in theunvarnished way that we want to,
but there's always the nextmemoir and the next story that
we can tell.
So when we are writing a memoir, some things that we need to
(11:40):
think about is what was theemotional journey, what changed
and what is the why abouttelling this story?
So with me I had written mydebut novel, which was me trying
to sort of tell my personalstory, but I could not actually
(12:01):
write a memoir at that time inmy life.
I started writing that when Iwas 25 years old and it was
eventually published when I was32.
So you know, obviously a verylong lead time, but that was not
a time in my life when I coulddo it.
I started writing my memoirafter I had my daughter and I
felt like I sort of had PTSDbecause it was bringing back all
(12:23):
these memories of my childhoodand I was going through all
these different emotions where Iwas like judging my mother and
I was angry with her aboutcertain things that happened.
And then I got postnataldepression and I just reached
the other side, where I realizedhow hard my mother did have it
being, you know, 15 year oldbride, being a 16 year old
(12:46):
mother and becoming a mentalpatient within months of giving
birth, and so it gave me a verydifferent perspective and it
gave me a very different writingof that memoir.
I actually wrote it numeroustimes in a different stages of
my life.
I had a very differentperspective on it, but it was
very difficult to write.
(13:07):
There were a lot of hardmoments.
There was therapy I did have togo into therapy, I did have to
take breaks and, as I saidearlier, I did need to think
about what is the story I wantedto tell and how did I want to
package that.
And so there were some storiesthat I did soften or some
(13:28):
stories that I told a differentperspective, and perhaps when I
write my next memoir, I mightrevisit those or I might not.
You know, it depends on whatI'm wanting to explore in that
particular story, and so youknow, that's the other thing
that happens when you're writingabout yourself.
As you go through differentexperiences, as you age, as you
(13:51):
evolve, your perspective evolvesalso in that way, which is
quite amazing.
And so I think that there isalso something about going back
and revisiting stories thatwe've told previously and
telling them from that differentperspective and, in a sense,
sharing that evolution that wehave and the way that we
transform, because I think thereis something quite beautiful
(14:14):
about that, about having theopportunity to gain wisdom.
My mother died when she was 66,which is very, very young, and
you know she also.
She was very wise in some ways,but she was also quite limited
because of the mental illnessand because of the electric
(14:36):
shocks therapy that she wassubjected to, and so there were
certain things that she wasnever able to evolve in.
So I very much treasure thatand am very grateful for that
and love that as a concept interms of thinking about our
lives and thinking about what weare writing about.
So I think what I would sayabout writing a memoir is that
(15:01):
you do need to have someperspective on it.
It might help you to write itwhile you are in the midst of it
, in terms of making notes ordoing journal entries, I would
encourage you to think aboutmaybe not publishing those and
not putting them out in a publicforum, because when you are in
(15:22):
those moments of deepvulnerability and deep pain, you
know you're actually not fullythere.
I felt like after I lost mymother, I did actually lose my
mind for a while.
I was not cognitivelyfunctioning in a way that you
(15:43):
know was normal.
I remember going to a meetingwith my PhD supervisors and
having this conversation andit's kind of blank.
I don't really have very clearmemories, but I do remember that
they looked at each other.
There was this moment when theylooked at each other and they
said we think you need to take abreak, we think we need a leave
(16:05):
of absence.
And while I don't have muchclarity about that conversation,
I do remember that I was justnot able to think, I was not
able to connect things.
I don't think I could evenremember the name of the book I
was writing, and so those deepmoments of trauma, they do make
(16:27):
it difficult to think andsometimes you are kind of in an
altered space.
I know I certainly was.
I had to take sleeping pillsjust to be able to function and
just to be able to not go intobasically a nervous breakdown.
And so after my mother's passingand during that period, I was
(16:51):
writing things in a diary and Ido have notes.
And there is a night that is ahorrible night that I had with
my mother during her breakdownand I do want to write about
those things and it was goodthat I took those notes and that
I've got that record.
(17:12):
But to write it for publication, to actually share it at that
time, no, no, that would nothave been a good thing.
And so I would encourage anyonewho's going through those
experiences take notes, journal,keep the memory, because, also,
you will forget, because traumadoes sort of.
(17:33):
It depends on how your brainprocesses, but for me, I
disassociate, I block, I justkind of go.
Things go black.
In moments of very heightenedemotion, I leave, I'm not here,
and so I think that you knowhaving that, that jotting down,
(17:55):
and that remembering, is good,but think about whether you want
to um publish that and do thatfrom the perspective of when you
are, when you've processed it.
So I think it's reallyimportant to not write when it's
you know, know an active word,and also the way that you know
is, if you are trying to writeabout it and it's actually
(18:18):
making it worse, then that'ssomething that you need to pause
, because I really believe thatwriting should make it better.
And I remember when I waswriting my memoir and it was
getting worse and I was going toa bad place, I had to stop.
I went to counselling, I wroteother things, I took a break, I
(18:42):
skipped some of those sections,I continued on and then, when I
felt stronger and I had someclarity, I went back.
So those are the things that weneed to think about in terms of
writing about wounds and how dowe deal with it.
So I'm going to move on tofiction now.
And how do we do this infiction?
So we're channeling the wound,we're not recreating it.
(19:06):
So sometimes maybe there'ssomething that you do want to
write about and it's safer to doit in fiction, it's safer to
disguise it.
So it gives us that distanceand it still lets us bleed
through with that emotionaltruth, but it keeps us safe, and
(19:26):
so that's what I did with mydebut novel.
I could not write it as a memoirat that point.
I could not share the story, amemoir at that point I could not
share the story of what it waslike truly to have a parent who,
you know, was bipolar, and someof the things that I went
through when I was a child,really traumatic things, and so
I needed time and space.
(19:47):
But having written that firstbook as fiction did sort of help
me clarify, it did help meclean out certain memories, it
did help me contextualizecertain experiences and it did
help me understand.
And so then, when I was goingback and writing it as a memoir,
I was then able to use all ofthose lessons.
(20:12):
So you know, see how it'sworking for you.
So when you are writing fictionand you are wanting to explore
your wounds, think about theemotion that you are exploring,
what part of you is yourcharacter expressing and how can
(20:33):
you write honestly, even if thedetails are invented.
So you're bringing some ofyourself into that story, but
you're still keeping yourselfsafe.
So with Sabir's Dilemma, whichis the fiction version of my
life, it was writing about beingin both worlds and that was
(20:56):
sort of the main story, eventhough it was about being
parented by a mother frombipolar.
I was sort of looking at beingof a migrant background, being
in Australia and theintersection between the two.
So that's the angle that I sortof took with that.
And then, you know, I look atmy freelance writing and I have
(21:19):
also written from wounds there,wounds that you know had healed,
but things that I still feltthat I needed to explore.
So one of the articles that Iwrote for the Age was about I
had to marry into my faith butmy daughter doesn't, and I was
(21:41):
going through this experience oftalking to young people my age.
I live in the suburb of StAlbans, it's where I grew up,
it's where I teach and I teachyoung people who are, like
myself, the children of migrants, and who are caught between
those worlds of living up to theexpectations of their parents
(22:01):
and the culture, but also beingin Australia and sort of having
these opportunities.
And one of the things that wascoming up was this resistance to
relationships that were acrossreligious boundaries, ethnic
boundaries, cross-culturalrelationships, and so one of the
(22:24):
things that I could speak to mystudents about was
understanding that, thankfully,my love story and my
relationship worked out well.
I fell in love and married aman who was of Bosnian Muslim
background, like me, and itwasn't an arranged marriage or
(22:44):
anything like that.
We did meet and we did fall inlove, but there is an element of
I knew what my family was likeand I knew that at that time if
I did have a cross-culturalrelationship, I would not have a
relationship with my family,and so they were that did
(23:06):
influence my thinking and thatit did influence, in a sense,
what I looked for in a partner.
Um, even though it was verysubconscious and I was 19 when I
met and married my, it allhappened very quickly crazy love
, but realizing that thatexperience still resonated with
(23:29):
people and was something thatpeople were going through.
But then also from theperspective of a mother who I
never put that pressure on mydaughter and my husband does not
put that pressure on mydaughter, we have always had
conversations about you maymarry a girl, you may marry a
(23:50):
boy, you may love someone who is, you know of our background,
you may not.
We have never put any of thatonto her and that's one thing
that I'm really happy aboutwe've always been on the same
page about and it's becausegrowing up in that background
and having that message andknowing that your parents love
(24:15):
has limitations, that they willonly love you as long as you
meet their expectations, as longas you meet what they want from
you.
It is actually a little souldestroying.
It does affect you, and it didaffect me for a long time,
because when you are loved withlimitations and with boundaries,
(24:39):
it does affect your self-worthand it takes a long time to
process and deal with that andto think that you are worthy of
more than those limitations andthose constraints, and so that's
something that I wanted mydaughter to grow up with.
I wanted her to grow up in anenvironment of unlimited love,
(24:59):
of there is nothing that you canever do or say and you will not
be loved.
I mean, obviously you know, um,I hope that she is law-abiding
and moral and ethical, um, butin terms of you know, those sort
of expectations about how youshould behave or who you should
(25:20):
be, that's not something Iwanted to put on her, and so,
know, writing this article gaveme the opportunity to express
that, and I remember the lastline was something like not
everyone, you know, those of uswho grew up with this, we know
what the price is, and when Iwas writing that article, I was
(25:43):
writing it for these youngpeople, these young students
that I knew that I was talkingto, that I could see that pain
in their eyes and I wanted toacknowledge and validate them.
And so in that way I was takingmy trauma and my pain but I was
wanting to connect it for otherpeople and I was also sort of
(26:05):
wanting to open up that dialogue, because some people who don't
grow up in these backgrounds,who don't grow up and with these
sort of family expectations,they don't understand it.
They're like you can marrywhoever you want.
You are living in Australia,yes, you can.
But will you have your family?
Will you have that relationship, or will that cause a tear in
(26:28):
the fabric of that relationship?
Can you bear it?
Can you go through thatexperience and live with that
tear and with that loss and thedestruction that that will bring
to your spirit and to yourheart?
And so I also wanted to sort offlag that and flag that.
(26:49):
Yes, that's wonderful if youcome from that sort of a family
background.
It's wonderful for my daughterthat she's got two parents who
went through a lot of thesethings and who are making
different decisions for her.
But unfortunately there are alot of people who are still in
that position.
So fiction can sort of give youthat opportunity to share those
(27:14):
stories and to write a narrativeabout what you want to talk
about, but creating thosearchetypes and creating
characters that give youplausible deniability.
So when my aunt read Sabiha'sDilemma, she said, oh, the aunt
(27:34):
is a little bit like me, butshe's not.
And the grandfather is a littlebit like me, but he's not Like
you.
Know my grandfather, but he'snot.
And Sabiha's a little bit likeyou, but he's not like you know
my grandfather, but he's not.
And so behaves a little bitlike you but she's not.
And that's plausibledeniability, where you are able
to create the character whereit's got some of the
(27:55):
characteristics of what you wantto explore.
But you have given yourselfenough plausible deniability.
There's something else that youcan do in terms of writing
fiction.
You can, you know, use thewounds and create relatable
characters.
So I think that when we arecreating a character that has
(28:17):
that deep emotional journey andthat is in that state of
transformation, it can really,really add depth.
And so you're using their flaws, their pain and their journey.
So the novel that I am going tobe publishing soon, that is the
first book in my series and thatis my thesis book.
(28:39):
Um, my protagonist is Seika.
I created her wound as theguilt of surviving when so many
others didn't.
So Seika is in a war zone, andit's about her trying to retain
her morality and her goodnesswhen survival is all that
(29:02):
matters and life is just abouttrying to survive.
And then the continuation ofthat is the survivor journey and
how you have that survivor'sguilt and what do you do with it
.
And then eventually, as theseries goes on, it's about her
(29:24):
learning to use her wounds interms of trying to find justice
and finding meaning within that.
And so it's been reallyinteresting how this character
has evolved as the seriesevolved, has evolved, and it's
given me the opportunity to sortof explore different things.
I mean, it's so weird becauseI'm the writer, so I've created
(29:46):
this character and I've createdthis world, but then in another
way, as you keep writing anddeveloping a world, it sort of
takes a life of its own and itfeels like the character is
talking to you and the characteris leading you into this, and
so even the way that I'm talkingabout it, I find it really
interesting.
And so, um, when you're thinkingabout writing fiction, uh,
(30:12):
something that you can do is youcan think of a moment in your
life when you felt vulnerable orhurt and imagine a character
with that same wound, and howwould they react to the world.
And so, um, seka, you know,while I have not been in a war
zone and I have not survived,that, in one sense my childhood
(30:35):
and the upheaval of my childhooddoes reflect a little bit of
seka's reality, and so my traumafrom that goes into her and
then me, finding meaning withinthat trauma and finding a way of
making that trauma.
(30:57):
You know, when that trauma isactually influencing my life, it
is becoming my drive.
That's something that I havealso used with Seika, so her
trauma has become her drive andher purpose.
And so I guess we're bothjoined by social justice, and
(31:18):
that's something that Seika andI have in common.
And so, in that way, whileSeika is a different person to
me and we have not had the samelives, and it's sort of the
first time, in a sense, that I'mwriting a book and a character
that's completely outside of meif we don't count my romance
(31:38):
novels, there's always a littlebit of you in everything that
you do.
And so when you go back to theheart of it.
You sort of see what is yourdna, what's your, what's your
blueprint in that.
So this is the way that fictioncan, you know, serve us.
It can serve us in those twoways, which is it gives us
(32:00):
plausible dinability where wecan explore a story that might
be too emotionally fraught formemoir, and we can also use what
we are going through and whatwe are feeling in our
experiences to create ourcharacters and give them that
big world and give them that bigdrive and characterization.
(32:22):
So now I wanted to talk abouttips and tricks for writing and
some practical tools that youcan use when you're writing
really hard, emotional things.
You know, write in sprints.
I mean, this works for any typeof writing.
I find that you know you'restruggling for time or you're
just struggling for motivation.
(32:42):
Writing sprints and going, okay, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 15
minutes it really kind of makesyou get things down on the page.
It pushes you past, uh, thatvoice in your head that might be
stopping you, that might bewanting to edit, um, that might
be, you know, being that thatdifficult voice that is, um,
(33:04):
self-sabotaging a little bit.
So doing sprints helps, but italso helps when you're writing
really emotional things, whereyou just try to get the words
out, you let your subconsciousdo the work and you see what is
there, because then you can sortof get out some of those things
, um, that don't have place inthe book.
(33:25):
So when I was writing my memoirand there were certain spots
where I was writing about thingsthat my mother did and my anger
would start overwhelming me andI would start judging her very
harshly and having this verynegative narrative in my head
towards her, I would do theventing, I would get it out on
(33:45):
the page, I would swear I wouldget all that judgment out and
then I would cull it and I wouldwrite it to try and let the
reader judge the action, notinsert my narrative, but give
the action and let the readerunderstand it, rather than
(34:08):
having my narration and havingmy anger there, um.
So I find that that helps havesome sort of a grounding ritual.
So you know, for some peoplethat might be lighting a candle,
playing music, um, going for awalk.
For me it's become my garden,doing my gardening, planting,
watering, being in the space,looking at my plants and then
(34:33):
also going for walks in the parkand really just sort of
breathing in and looking attrees and looking at greenery, I
find that I can just feel mybody relaxing.
I can feel it, the tense, tensejust leaving me, and also I
find that those moments of justletting your body rest and your
(34:57):
brain rest, you reset and thingsstart sort of clarifying and
you start getting that, thatmoments of clarity and going
okay, I know what I need to do.
I know what the problem isthere.
If you're writing scenes orsections where it's just too
hard, the emotions are gettingthe better of you, you're really
(35:19):
struggling use place seeplaceholders, um insert here and
just do a quick overview andmove on.
Come back to it at a time whenyou feel stronger, when you can
actually do that writing, whenyou can take that leap, when you
have had a conversation withsomeone who has helped you
(35:40):
clarify the emotion, or you'vehad a timeout and had your brain
have that opportunity toclarify that emotion and then
you can go back to it.
Another thing is you can keep ajournal beside your manuscript
and you can let yourself ventseparately.
So, depending on how you work,this could be, you know, be
(36:02):
where you are handwriting ajournal.
I used to do that for manyyears.
I actually still have them.
I've got a box of all thesejournals that I wrote over the
years.
I now find myself doing digitaljournals and it's more about
notes and things that I mightcome back to, and so that's
changed also.
So just find what works for you.
There's no right or wrong, it'swhatever the.
(36:24):
What works for you.
There's no right or wrong, it'swhatever the process is for you
.
Find a trusted reader or atherapist, especially if you're
writing memoir.
As I said, I did have to go totherapy to sort of take a time
out and deal with some things.
I also have friends who havebeen with me for decades, who
know everything about me and canreally be those trusted voices
(36:47):
that I can speak to, that I canvent, that I can get those
things out.
And the other thing that Iwould say is that you really
need to be careful who you getto read your work, especially at
this early stage, or who is theperson that you talk about,
(37:09):
because there are some peoplewho actually can't deal with
trauma and might struggle andmight negatively react and make
you feel bad about it.
So over the years when I've donememoir writing workshops, I
have had women come up to me andtalk to me about what they're
(37:29):
working on, and there were quitea few women who were working on
talking about sexual abuse thatthey had experienced as
children or somewhere later,later in life, and the
difficulty in writing about butalso being in writing groups and
sharing some of that writingand having really negative
(37:53):
experiences to that, and sosometimes some people can't deal
with what you're writing with.
So it's really important thatyou find the right people.
I actually remember one of theworkshops.
I had a conversation with onewoman and I had a conversation
with another woman and Irealized that they were having
(38:13):
the same sort of experiences,and so I brought them together
and I introduced them to eachother, um, and I said to them
the two of you have a lot totalk about, and so I'm hoping
that they were actually able tofind a connection and continue
that conversation with eachother and maybe develop a
(38:34):
critique partnership.
So when you are looking atsomeone reading your work,
that's important.
Think about the big picture.
So while every story ispersonal, there is a universal
message.
So when I was working on this,uh, fiction novel that is my war
book, it was very hard to writeat certain points in terms of
(38:58):
reading the research, readingabout the genocide, reading
about the atrocities that werecommitted in the war, the
hardships that people wentthrough, and I did have to take
breaks also with that.
But then I also had to sort ofstep away and I had to think
about what is it that I'm tryingto say?
What is the story that I'mtrying to tell?
Why do I have to go back and doit and then also think about
(39:23):
what is it that I could say thatwas unique about this story?
And so one of the things that Irealized that I had to bring
was this understanding of whatit was like in communism, in
communist Yugoslavia, and theway that the division in society
occurred between the urban andthe rural communities, so
(39:46):
between the people who lived inthe city and the people who
lived in the village.
My mother's side of the family,um, grew up, you know, I grew up
, um, in a village.
I lived for four years in whatwas yugoslavia with my
grandparents on a farm.
We did, did everything.
We had chickens, we had cowsthat we milked, we had a garden
(40:08):
that we harvested, we had wheatthat we used to reap and, you
know, get hay from, and just thewhole lot.
And I didn't really know aboutthese differences because I was
a child, but it was only when Iwas an adult and I married my
husband and I was talking to himand I realized he'd had a very
(40:32):
different upbringing and adifferent experience, because he
grew up in a city, so he grewup in Sarajevo, and his
experience in communistYugoslavia was very different.
And so when I was doing thisresearch for my thesis and for
this novel, that was somethingthat I came across that had an
(40:53):
impact in terms of how the warwas experienced in the town of
Srebrenica by the residents, andso that's something that I
wanted to share in my fictionand also something that
influenced my thesis.
And so while I felt, you know,I was doing this really
(41:14):
important story about writingabout a genocide that occurred
and about the danger of otheringand the danger of
discrimination, I was alsosharing a story that not many
people knew about and not manypeople understood, and so that
was something that gave me thatspace and that opportunity to,
(41:37):
you know, come back to it strongand refreshed and to keep going
, despite how difficult it wasat certain points.
The other thing is, take a timeout and write something else.
So you know, as I said, with mymemoir I took a time out.
I wrote romance novels.
Um, while working on this noveland this thesis, I took a time
(41:58):
out.
I wrote many freelance articles.
That sort of gave me theopportunity to write about
something else, to experiencesomething else, um, to still be
writing and moving forward but,um, to have a break from the
hard stuff so that I could thencome back refreshed and so
always sort of think about isthere other things that you can
(42:19):
take a break from?
And, you know, still flex yourwriting muscles, but give
yourself some space for healingand to refresh yourself.
So, when talking about writingfor healing and connection, you
(42:41):
know, writing wounds.
It's not just cathartic for youas a writer, it's healing for
the reader.
I've received some amazingmessages over the years from
people who have read my memoirand who have seen themselves
somehow in my memoir.
The two most amazing messageswere one was from a man who was
(43:04):
from a Muslim Bangladeshibackground and he read my memoir
and he related to my father whocommitted domestic violence
against my mother, and he saidhow he came to Australia with
the views that he brought fromhis culture, which was that you
(43:24):
were able to beat your wife andyour children and that he ended
up in the court system and thathe then had to learn to adapt to
the norms and the culture ofAustralia.
And I just thought it was sobrave and beautiful that he
actually wrote me that messageand that he was able to see that
.
But it also showed me howsometimes you think you're
(43:46):
writing one story, here you're,and you are the story that
you're telling, but other peoplemight see themselves in other
ways, and that the peopleconnections might make um could
be amazing.
You don't know what they are,and so those connections are
what matters.
Um.
And the second one was a manalso, and I was also surprised
(44:08):
about these male readers,because I thought I was writing
a book for women and I waswriting just about women's
experiences.
So that's the interesting thingtoo, in terms of, you know,
reading crosses all lines,gender lines, all the lines that
we could introduce.
(44:28):
And he was relating to mystepfather, because he had
struggled with the line betweenbeing a parent and being a
friend, and to do one you had tolose the other, and so that was
something else that he sawhimself in with my stepfather in
(44:49):
terms of my stepfather was veryconnected to the experience of
children and he was just a greatcompanion and we could relate
to him on that level.
But then, you know, if he triedto to parent us, we could not
see him in that way because wehad this relationship with him
(45:11):
that was more along thefriendship lines, because he was
just such a fun person.
He in a sense, did not havemuch of a childhood and so he
just loved spending time withchildren, um, and it was so
beautiful to watch him.
I'm so glad that my daughterhad that experience when she was
small, that she got to be withhim, um, and see a little bit of
(45:34):
that side of him.
So, um, you know when, whenwe're writing these words and
we're sharing these stories, weare also making these
connections that we don't knowwe might make.
So take heart from that.
So, finishing up, thank you forjoining me today's episode.
(45:57):
I hope, um, that it inspiresyou to embrace your wounds, to
find ways of using them in yourcraft, to have a deeper
appreciation for the couragethat it takes to put our hearts
on the page.
And, you know, I would love tohear from you in terms of
comments on the episode orconnect with me via social media
(46:19):
.
If you're curious about mywriting, head over to my website
, join my newsletter and untilnext time, please keep writing,
keep healing and remember everystory starts with a word, thank
you.
Thank you for tuning intoAmra's Armchair Anecdotes.
If you enjoyed today's episode,don't forget to subscribe and
(46:43):
follow for more insights,stories and inspiration from my
armchair to yours.
Remember every story beginswith a single word.
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