February 17, 2026 • 54 mins
Virginia DeLuca is a writer and psychotherapist. She’s the author of the award-winning novel, As If Women Mattered. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Modern Love, The Boston Globe, Vulture, The Huffington Post, the Iowa Review, and The Writer.
Virginia’s also a graduate of GrubStreet’s 2020 Memoir Incubator.
Her most recent book is If You Must Go, I Wish You Triplets, a candid, funny, and emotionally rich memoir about her divorce and reinvention in her 60s. She published this debut memoir at 72, proving it’s never too late to tell your story. I’ve read If You Must Go, I Wish You Triplets, and found it to be inspiring, particularly regarding not giving up despite numerous challenges in your personal life. Virginia’s book will resonate with readers who may be navigating heartbreak, identity shifts, and the complicated freedom that comes with starting over. Virginia believes emotional resilience is built through humor and friendship, both of which are well expressed in her book.
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Steve Cu (00:00):
On today's Story Beat.
(00:02):
I really do believe that people should engage in awriting workshop or a class or something like that
because I do think having feedback about howpeople are responding, it doesn't mean you have to
use it or agree with what they say. But it's veryimportant, I think, to have that.
(00:23):
This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden. A podcast forthe creative mind. Storybeat explores how masters
of creativity develop and produce brilliant worksthat people everywhere love and admire. So join us
as we discover how talented creators find successin the worlds of imagination and entertainment.
(00:48):
Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.
Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We're comingto you from the steel City, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. My guest today, Virginia DeLuca is awriter and psychotherapist. She's the author of
the award winning novel as if Women Mattered. Herwork has appeared in the New York Times, Modern
(01:12):
Love, the Boston Globe, Vulture, the HuffingtonPost, the Iowa Review, and the Writer. Virginia is
also a graduate of Grub Street's 2020 memoirincubator. Her most recent book, if youf Must Go,
I Wish youh Triplets, is a, candid, funny andemotionally rich memoir about her divorce and
reinvention in her 60s. She published this debutmemoir at 72, proving it's never Too Late to Tell
(01:38):
youl Story. I've read if youf Must Go, I Wish youhTriplets and found it to be inspiring,
particularly regarding not giving Up. DespiteNumerous Challenges in youn Personal Life,
Virginia's book will resonate with readers who maybe navigating heartbreak, identity shifts, and the
complicated freedom that comes with starting over.
(01:58):
Virginia believes emotional resilience is builtthrough humor and friendship, both of which are
well expressed in her book. So for all thosereasons and many more, it's a great privilege for
me to welcome the insightful writer VirginiaDeLuca to story be today. Ginny, thanks so much
for joining me.
Thank you so much for having me.
Oh, it's a great pleasure to have you believethat. so let's go back in time just a little,
(02:21):
little bit. How old were you when you firststarted thinking about words and writing?
I think I was probably six or seven. Yeah. I mean,I was very into. I love desks, I love notebooks,
and I loved pens. And so I loved sitting at mydesk and sort of talking about things.
(02:42):
So you, you have a good time at Office Depot,don't you?
Yes, it was one of my favorite things. That'sright.
So what started you thinking about being a writer?
Was it books that started You.
You know, I've. I've thought about this a lotrecently, and I talked a little bit about it. It's
really probably my mother. I had always describedmy mother as sort of difficult. She's a difficult
(03:07):
woman. Right. You know, I'm 72, so, you know,that. That's been my story all along. And as I
wrote this, I realized, wow, she was the one. Forall of her difficulty, she would just hand me
books. She would just. She didn't do the library,but she would just bring home books. And I was
(03:27):
allowed to read any book that was on the shelf.
She never said, oh, you should. That you're tooyoung, or whatever.
Did you wind up reading. Did you wind up readingbooks that were above your pay grade?
Yeah, I'm sure I did. Absolutely. There was justabsolutely no, you know, question about that. We
belonged to the Unitarian Church back then, andthere were some, people there who wrote. And there
(03:54):
was Nancy Drew stories. Somebody wrote somethingthat was similar called the Judy Bolton stories.
And I don't remember the name of that author. Ididn't look it up, but I don't remember. And she
introduced me to that woman, and I thought, oh,she. So people actually, like regular people can
(04:15):
become a writer?
Regular people, as opposed to some kind of greatGod up on a pedestal?
Virginia DeLuca (04:19):
Exactly.
And so then how did you then wind up inpsychotherapy? Was it because you had a difficult
mom or what brought you there?
Yeah, that's a very long story. But yes, I mean, Ithink it has to do with that. It has to do with,
you know, some family history that had, you know,started to happen. And also, I think I was a
(04:41):
little afraid of being a writer. At a certainpoint, I had a choice. I had three kids. I had
gone to, you know, college, but had kids veryyoung at, like, 21. And then. And I was getting my
first divorce, and I was sort of thinking, like,how am I going to, you know, manage all of this?
And I had an option to go to my MSW or get mymaster's of arts. So I applied to Boston
(05:08):
University, and I got accepted in both programs.
And you chose psychotherapy as opposed to thearts?
I think, because I was afraid that I would not beable to support myself.
Well, I think that a lot of people think that. Andin fact, that's really true. It's very difficult
to support yourself as a writer in the arts. andso I think probably a wise choice. How much do you
(05:29):
think your psychotherapy training and then yoursubsequent practice influences the way you think?
About characters and how you write.
I actually think it's an interesting question togo the other way around. I think all the reading
that I've done has had major influence of, how Ido psychotherapy.
All the. You've used the observations of greatwriters over time to help your thinking about how
(05:55):
you look at humans. Yeah, I think that that's areally interesting reverse of what we would
ordinarily consider it. You write in your bookthat reading has saved my life. That's a quote.
and how has it saved your life?
Well, I use reading. I think as many usesubstances. And I, I'll read anything. You know,
(06:16):
it doesn't have to be. I'm not necessarilyliterary. You know, I love a gripping story, but,
you know, so I, you know, I use reading as a wayof sort of getting involved in other lives,
though.
Certainly in literature, pure literature. thereare lots of truly tremendous stories and great
(06:36):
characters. But that's also true in pop fictionand, and in other kinds of storytelling. there's
lots of good ways to lear about characters just bystudying them in the arts itself. So. All right,
so when did you actually start writing? Seriously?
I know you were writing as a kid, but when wereyou serious about it, where you thought, this is
something I can do or try to do?
(06:59):
So as I said, I was, I had, I was a young motherand most of my peers were feminists and they were
going off to do exciting, wonderful things. I meta very close friend and we were helping with
Postpartum Pregnant and Postpartum Women was, anagency that was. And we became very close and we
(07:24):
became good friends and stayed good friends. Andat a certain point we said, you know, we should
write a book about this. Went to the library andthere was a book called how to be Happily
Published. Again, an author I probably should havelooked up for this, but I didn't. And we followed
the actual thing. You know, it's like, this is howyou write a query, query letter. This is how you
(07:49):
do this. And we just followed it step by step bystep. And we went again to the library and we went
to, you know, publishers, and we just wentthrough, the Alphabet and a publisher that was
very small called Demner Publishing published it.
(08:10):
I mean, it was a nonfiction book.
So you were already in practice as apsychotherapist when this was going on?
No, we were just working as an agency, not, youknow, sort of a support group.
Steve Cuden (08:24):
Okay.
You know, constant support groups.
So this is before your practice then?
Virginia DeLuca (08:29):
So.
So, so did did you know at that time, did youthink to yourself, I am good enough to be a
published author? Did that go through your head?
When did you come to that decision or that, thatunderstanding that, yeah, you know what, I know
how to write. I'm good enough to be published.
I think we like, we literally wrote like two orthree chapters and sent it off. We, you know, we
(08:51):
had an outline. So it wasn't like a question of,oh, am I a good enough writer? It was like, no, we
know stuff about all this stuff. Yeah, again, youknow, friend, I believe in friendship. So, you
know, we would sort of go off each other aroundthat stuff.
Yeah, I see. It was helpful. I assume, and correctme if I'm wrong, that having another person to
(09:12):
bounce things off of and to get feedback from washelpful in that case, wasn't it?
Yes. And accountability. I have to write achapter. We did it like that. I mean, when I think
about this, it's very funny. You know, when we cutand paste, we were literally cutting and pasting.
Steve Cuden (09:29):
Oh sure.
So, you know, you have to write a chapter and thenI have to hand it to her. And then Randy had to
hand hers back and then we rewrote those chaptersand we weren't allowed to reject the other
person's corrections.
M that in and of itself, it's a little bit likethat. In the entertainment industry too. There are
(09:50):
many well known teams of writers, usually, duos,and they then are sort of forced to bring each
other to the table. And I think that there is somekind of, as you say, accountability. It helps to
have that versus writing on your own where you'renot on anybody's dime or deadline and that then
(10:11):
you have to be self disciplined, which is a wholedifferent thing.
The whole different thing. And also you reallycan't, you know, you can't dither around going,
oh, I don't know how to do this. You just do it.
You know, that's, that's a good lesson for peopleto pay attention to. That is the way to do it.
Even if you're on your own, you just do it.
Because guess what? Nobody else is going to do itfor you. So if you want it done, you need to just
(10:35):
do it. And it's a little bit like, like Nike, youjust do it. And, and so anybody, that wants to be
in the arts of any kind, but especially thelonesome arts, like being a writer, just needs to
dig in. It's hard. It's really hard. Do you now,you now write on your Own, obviously. do you find
yourself, being fairly self disciplined at thispoint in your life?
(10:58):
Yes, at this point. But it took a lot of timebecause after that I really, you know, we sort of,
we didn't, we didn't try to write together becauseof life. You know, life got busy in different
directions and then, you know, self doubt came ina lot.
Yeah, get in line.
That's right. So, you know, so I think you knowAnne Lamott who basically, you know, bird by bird.
(11:23):
Shitty first draft.
Shitty. Thank you. I've said that many times onthis show.
Yeah. And that's really. And I do that all thetime. That's how I do it. That's how. And that's
how I taught my kids how to do homework. Shittyfirst draft.
So there's truth in. From my way of thinking,there's truth in the fact that your first draft is
just a molding draft and everything else iscrafting and taking it from there into the art
(11:49):
form of writing by rewriting and revising andsculpting. And it's very difficult for first time
writers to understand that because they all thinktheir first draft is precious. They got through
it.
Vir (12:00):
That's right. That's right.
That's not it. The first draft is not precious.
And you know, and people write in different ways.
So my friend Randy, Susan Myers has published, youknow, five or six novels and she's, she writes
with a lot of outline and you know, characterthings all over the place. And I, I've never
(12:23):
written like that. It's that shitty first draft.
It really is.
Well, but you can have a shitty first draft of analbum and it's sort.
And then I begin to pull it out, sort of like,what is it that I'm actually really trying to say?
What's really happening here?
Well, I was taught in school that you don't worryabout the theme of your story until after you've
(12:45):
written a draft at least. I think this is veryvaluable. You just purge it out, what we call
purge drafts or puke drafts or whatever you wantto call it. And then you start worrying about all
the other, truly refinement parts of it.
Virginia DeLuca (12:58):
That's right.
I'm glad to hear that you do that. I find it bythe way, in my life very challenging to not
outline.
Vir (13:05):
Oh, interesting. Yes. Yeah.
So I'm an outliner. I have to know sort of inadvance where I'm going and ah, then I can make
changes as I'm going. I'm not stuck.
Virginia DeLuca (13:14):
Right.
But I have to think my way through before I startor I feel like I'm going to get lost. You're not
afraid of that at all? You just go, yeah.
I think in some ways it came from. Because I alsouse writing as a way of dealing with whatever
emotions were going on in my life. You know, I'mroiling around in all sorts of emotion, whatever
(13:35):
it is, and I start to write it down, which I'mbeginning then, to articulate and putting words
into something that's sort of incoherent.
Do you find that, that doing that is cathartic foryou?
I think it's the only thing that has kept megoing. You know, it really is like, oh my God, all
sorts of stuff is falling around I can't figureout. And then I start writing and then it make,
(13:58):
you know, begins to make sense and then I can pullout. Oh, yeah, that's clear.
And thus how writing has, Writing and reading, Iguess, have saved your life.
Right?
That's very, very good. are you still in practiceas a psychotherapist?
Yeah, I have a small private practice, yeah.
Okay, so how do you find the time to do both?
Well, as I said, a small private practice, I did alot of writing and when I was working full time or
(14:24):
extra full time, I have always been a very earlyriser. I mean, since I've been like a kid. You
know, when I was a young woman girl, onsleepovers, I would fall asleep. I do a lot of my
writing in the dark. So it's like, you know, fouro' clock in the morning and nobody's there to talk
(14:45):
to me. There's no phone calls, there's no, youknow, none of that. And that's when I do a lot of
writing.
And that's your habit and practice in terms ofbeing a writer?
Yes. Yeah.
And, and that therefore you're able to find thetime quite easily because it's. You're not
impinging on any part of the rest of your day.
Exactly.
Interesting, interesting. So tell the listenersabout your first book. As if Women Mattered, which
(15:08):
I've not read, but I'm curious, what's that about?
So there were four women. It's an autobiographicalnovel. But the idea isn't. It's not the actual
details of it, but there were four women and weformed a, women's group and we all were young
mothers. And so this is the story of the women'smovement, basically in the, in the women's group,
(15:33):
you know, consciousness raising group. Youprobably remember, have Heard.
Steve Cuden (15:37):
I certainly do.
Yeah. And I think, it was really written with theidea of, like, this is such an amazing time to
have been alive in a. As a woman. So.
So this was fictionalized version of yourexperience.
Yeah. So there were four women, but yet theactual. Actually, I joke about. It's not the four
(16:01):
women that were actually in the women's group.
It's all of me. It's basically. This is one partof me. This is another part of me. This another
part of me.
And so then, of course, now you've published amemoir which is based totally on reality. I assume
I said you didn't make anything up. which do youprefer to write? Do you have a preference between
(16:22):
writing things that are fictional and non.
It's interesting. So that. So that novel probablytook about 20 years to write. And just because I
was busy doing all this other stuff. Right. And.
And I always thought that I would only writenovels. And I have written a lot of novels. Not a
lot. I've written a bunch, like maybe four, butthey're in the draw, you know, they're not. They
(16:48):
have never. Now I am finding. Doing sort ofpersonal essays to be. I love it. I've been really
having a good time. I had never really writtenessays before I did this book.
And those are truly personal about you?
Virgin (17:03):
Yes, they're, all. Yeah.
Do you think of yourself as you're writing thesepersonal stories, as you're telling a story? Are
you a storyteller in writing these?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's sort of like, youknow, yes, this happened, and this is why it might
be. It's a personal story that I'm pretty sureother people would relate to, but they might not
(17:26):
want to be talking about it.
Well, the nightly news is filled with stories, andthey're real. So storytelling does not necessarily
imply fiction. we each tell ourselves storiesabout our day to one another, and that's how we
communicate, and it's still storytelling. So. Sothat's why I was curious if you think of yourself
as I'm telling stories about myself.
(17:48):
Yes. And I. I mean, I think about this a lot. Andit's a mix of. That I talk about in terms of
therapy, is that we all tell stories about ourlife, as you just said, and sometimes we get very
stuck in a story and we have to sort of mayberevise a little bit or we have to sort of really
reframe it a little bit.
(18:08):
So what do you think then? Makes a good story?
Good? Why. Why write about it? Why Read it. Whatmakes a good story attractive?
I, think for me reading a story is my connectionto those characters or to that, to that writer. In
some ways it feels. It feels to me like a mindmelding sometimes, you know, like, oh, right, this
(18:35):
person is actually articulating exactly, exactlywhat I have felt or known or. And have never
articulated myself. Something like that.
Do you ever write stuff that's so personal youjust don't show it to.
Anybody in terms of, like, journaling and stuff?
Yes. Yeah. I mean, sometimes my writing orjournaling or that kind of stuff is just raw
(18:57):
emotion. And I, really wouldn't want people toread it because it might not be nice.
So let's talk for a moment about if you must go, Iwish you triplets, which I was fascinated in
reading. it's kind of what you just described, butrefined. Well refined and well written. it's not
just you just purging anything out. Althoughthere's a lot there that's clearly from your
(19:21):
emotional life and from your challengingexperiences. So tell the listeners a little bit
more about what that book is about.
So this is the story that happened. I was marriedwith my second marriage, and I was happily,
happily. I believed I was totally happily in love.
And I love it. Kept talking about, oh, secondmarriages, later in life. Love is the best, is the
(19:47):
best. And then he came home and said, I don't wantto be married anymore, I don't find you
attractive, and I want to have a baby. And I was,just. I mean, I was totally shocked. I'm also a
therapist. It was like, how could I be shocked?
How could the, how could I have missed that? Sothere was all those kinds of things. I basically
(20:11):
waved him goodbye. said, okay, you know, I, I justam, like, totally stunned. And I was probably a
little bit in shock, actually. I mean, you know,sort of. and I basically opened the computer and I
started writing. Titled it, you know, this, youknow, Perry's leaving. And I said, you know,
here's the. Says middle aged older woman basicallygetting dumped for a younger person. though I
(20:36):
didn't know what the story was at the time, butit's so trite, whatever. But I needed to write it
down. And I just did pages and pages. I treated itas I was doing film, like shooting film. Every,
every text, every email, you know, I, you know,wrote down all the, you know, all the
(20:56):
conversations that we had, said, I can't make anysense of this, but I'm going to look at it at some
Point.
So did you find, obviously you were using it as toget at your own, problems with it, with your own
issues with it? how hard did you find it to diginto that sort of challenging life experience?
Was it hard to go back to it or just to. I wasliterally just writing it down. I was literally.
(21:21):
As it was happening, were you.
Were you reliving it in your mind's eye as youwere writing it down?
I really, I mean, I really kept thinking about itas shooting. You know, I'm. I'm shooting film.
I'll edit it when I figure it out what'shappening.
So you were being like a reporter from the field.
You were reporting on your life as if you were alittle disappointed, passionate about.
Right. You know, what people told me, what peoplesaid to me, all those kinds of things. When. So I
(21:46):
had all those pages. Now I'm getting, you know,it's like, you know, 67, I'm about to leave my
therapy agency practice. I applied to be thememoir in the, memoir incubator at Grub street,
and I got accepted. I had taken, I think it waslike 50 pages from that journal. Then I had to
(22:07):
look at it and then sort of say, what's the story?
What is the story? You know, I started out itbeing like, oh, boy, you know, somebody done
something wrong and to try to really shit, youknow, to really, what is the story? Is it the
story of being, you know, the saddest woman in theworld or what? And that was a phenomenal program.
(22:31):
So we're back to this notion of you've purged thisinformation out, and it's personal information,
but nevertheless it's information. And now youtake this, for lack of a better word, lumpy bunch
of clay, and now you're gonna sculpt it intosomething beautiful to look at and consider.
And then also I took it and sort of said, okay, sohow is this related to the rest of my life? That's
(22:55):
probably the psychotherapy part of me that's, youknow, oh, this story. Oh, how is that story fit to
this, to this current story?
So you were able to step back from all of it inthe writing of it and then in the analysis of it,
you were able to sort of take, an outer viewperspective and look at it analytically.
Virginia DeLuca (23:17):
Yeah.
And did you find that fun to do or hard to do, orwas it just, an exercise that was just
interesting, to do?
How did you look at, was fascinating to do this?
Because ever do this? I'm, just sort of re goingthrough some of the. My most painful parts of my
life. And what was also interesting is it's beingread in the class and it turned out to be somewhat
(23:45):
funny. And I was thinking, okay, that's veryinteresting. This is the hardest part of my life,
and yet it's funny.
St (23:55):
Doesn't that make it better?
Yeah, I mean, it was. It sort of gave that sortof. Then it became sort of. Then it. It felt like
craft. Now I was crafting.
So there's no question, when you read the book, atleast from my perspective, there was no question
that I was reading something that was painful. Itwas painful for you to go through. It's clearly,
(24:16):
Couldn't have been any fun for you to go through.
And yet the perspective that you take when youwrote it is, is this. I don't want to say
humorous. It's not really a humor book, but it'slighthearted in the way that you look at it. And
that even through all these difficulties and someof it's like, oh, my goodness, this could not have
been good. and yet you took that perspective. Wasthere anything that you did to get to that tone,
(24:41):
or did you just discover it in the workshop?
Well, it felt a little. I mean, some of it was alittle absurd. There's literally. There's a
section probably really at the very beginning,where I call up and I call all the people that I
know, and I say, you know, my husband has just.
Perry just left, and he. Because he wants to havea baby. And he's 60s, you know, he's 60s year old,
(25:09):
and people are giving me things back. Oh, maybe hehas dementia. Oh, maybe he's already, you know,
maybe he had a uti, you know, a urinary tract. Infact, even as I wrote that down the next day, and
I wrote it down the next day, just literally what.
You know, it was funny. Even at that moment, I'mweeping, you know, I'm, sniveling, and I'm. And
(25:34):
it's funny.
So that's the old adage of, if I don't laugh, I'llcry. But you were doing a little of.
Virginia De (25:39):
Both, right in the.
In your author's note at the beginning of thebook. You write, and I quote, writing a memoir
involves assembling imperfect and subjectivememories. Okay, I think I know what that means.
What do you think that means?
Well, this is my story, right? So I had. I wouldguess that Perry, my ex husband, had a very
(26:02):
different story.
Steve Cuden (26:03):
No doubt.
And that's the imperfect memory, right? That's.
It's very subjective. I was having my experiences,and I'm talking about it. And as much as I was
aligned with what I had written down and theemails that are actual, very real, I'm still
shifting a story.
(26:24):
It's the reason why eyewitness testimony in courtcan sometimes be very faulty, because you can get
three eyewitnesses to give you three differentperspectives entirely. And that's what you're
saying is. So. All right, so while you're dealingwith the imperfect and subjective memories that
are, from your story as a memoirist, how do youdeal with it? Do you just plow through it? Like,
(26:46):
as you say, you just purge it out? Or do you haveways of thinking about being less subjective?
Again? This is from the. The class, actually.
There's the I narrator and the. The I character,and we were really talking about that all the
time. So the I character is what's happening onthe page. You know, oh, my God, he left. And I'm
(27:11):
weeping and I'm crying, and I'm doing this. Andthe I narrator has now taken a step out and is
going to comment about that. And that, I think,was exceptionally useful to do.
M. Did you do anything beyond that to develop thewhole story? How long did it take you to take this
(27:32):
material and mold it into pretty much achronological story?
What was amazing about this program is we got inthis program and we had one year, and we had to
write two full drafts within one year. That wasprobably the hardest thing I've ever done through
all of master's degrees, all of it. And we werereading. Right. We were reading all the material
(27:59):
for all the other people in the class. Nine of ustook that class, and four of us published.
That's substantial. Four out of nine.
and we really worked hard at that. And. And weended right at the end of COVID We decided. So the
class, basically the last two classes were, youknow, on Zoom. And we decided to keep meeting
(28:27):
every weekday morning from 9 to 12, and we wouldsit and write in front of the other people on the
little squares. and as we were doing on thecomputer.
So this class was a Zoom class.
This was after the. Right after the Grub streetclass. And Covid came then the rest of the year.
(28:52):
So that was all for rewriting.
Was the class in person, or was that also on Zoom?
Yeah, the class was in person.
The class was in person prior to the pandemic, soyou could actually get together without any kind
of problem. did you also then, as you were workingthis story. Did you then go and research anything,
like go back or interview people or, find otherinformation you needed, or was it completely out
(29:16):
of your mind's eye?
It was completely. What was in my. In that. In thejournal, you.
During the course of the story, you write that youwound up wondering if you would be homeless at one
point, and that once you had sold your house, youweren't sure. How did you overcome that while
being in the middle of life? I have. What did youdo?
(29:38):
Well, I was exaggerating. I mean, I think I wasreally. I was afraid of. That it wasn't going to
happen. You know, I had, you know, I had to sellthe house, you know, and so. And I got a lot of
help. People were remarkable. I really learned anenormous amount about, about. Of love, really. You
(30:05):
know, so here I lost this love and, you know, andthen I really was. Felt like I was surrounded by
love and people, you know, sort of helping to sortof pull that all, you know, to put me together. I
went from New Hampshire, I moved, I came toBoston, all that kind of stuff.
Well, you know, the cliche is that love isinfinite. And so you have it in little pieces in
(30:28):
your existence, but it's also everywhere at thesame time. And sometimes it's hard to see it or
find it, but it's there. You just have to seek itout, I guess is the best way to say it. You said
that when you were going through this, wherenothing made sense to you, and again, this is your
practice and habit is when nothing makes sense toyou to sit down and journal. Is that right?
Virg (30:50):
You know, you've probably,
Julia Cameron, Art the Artist's Way.
I probably read that book around the time shepublished it, and I took it to heart. And, you
know, you write three pages every single day. Now,obviously, people don't actually write three pages
(31:10):
every single day for 50 years. But whenever thingswere really difficult for my life, I would say,
okay, it's morning pages. And I would literally goon to, you know, these big black notebooks,
sketchbooks, and do three pages, you know, for.
And I would do that.
(31:30):
And what would happen to you on days when youweren't doing that or couldn't do it for some
reason? Would you feel it?
Oh, yes. It alters my whole sense of intenseemotional trauma type stuff. Right. Is in our
bodies. And I think it helps sort of settle itdown. So now I could, you know, go off to work. I
(31:52):
knew who I was doing. I was driving, you know, allthose Kinds of things. So yeah, correct me if I'm
wrong.
I think it gives you two things. I think it doespurge those things out so you can get it off your
chest and it's not sitting on your, sitting onyour consciousness. And it also then helps you to
have perspective on the whole thing.
Virginia DeLuca (32:09):
Right.
I think that's really excellent. You do have inthe book of Julia Cameron a Julia Cameron quote
which you say you put over your desk. And I'llquote it because I thought it was fabulous. do you
know how old I'll be when I finally finish thisthing? The answer is yes. The same age you'll be
if you don't.
Vi (32:27):
Right. Isn't that wonderful?
Exquisite advice. so that's the old thing about,you know, whichever way you say it, it'll be true.
you know what, however you work on this project,whichever way you go, it will be true either way,
whether you do it or don't do it, whether you sayyou're going to do it, whether you say you won't
do it, whatever it is. so at the time that youwere ah, going through this, you were on the verge
(32:51):
of publishing your first book. And so what didthat do to you and how did you work your way
through it?
So he left on May 15th and my launch was July, Imean June 17th or something like that. So the
launch was already set. We had a party, you know,scheduled there. It was a contest that involved
(33:13):
two other. So I won first prize. The, the secondand third prize were, were all going to be there.
And so I had to do it, I had to launch, I had tofigure out what I was going to read and I had to
launch and then I did nothing after that. Thenthat was, it said goodbye. It was an out of body
(33:35):
experience. Life is really great. Now I have tosell this book house and I have to move and I
never did one thing for that book at all. And fastforward many years later I write the book, the
memoir that talks about what was happening, aboutwhy I could not do that. And now my novel is, is
(34:03):
selling. And I find that extraordinarily ironicbecause.
Steve Cu (34:08):
Because of the memoir?
Virginia DeLuca (34:10):
Yes.
So people are reading about it in the memoir, thenthey get interested in finding out the the first
book.
Right.
That is very interesting. Well, that's sometimestrue for all kinds of art. You know, if you
people. By the way, it's not uncommon, there's adouble negative, but it's not uncommon for an
artist to create and create and create and createand not really catch fire for a long time. And
(34:34):
then once they cat, then all the earlier stuffstarts to catch fire too. That's not unusual to
have happened. And that's what you're talkingabout, is that people like something deeper in and
then go back and explore the earlier work.
And the thing is that it was a very tiny, youknow, it was a very tiny publisher. It was a, you
(34:55):
know, a books owner who decided to put a contestup and then published a book. So it was very tiny.
I'm curious, the publisher still had it in printor did they reprint? What did they do?
It's still in print. I mean, it's still. It's inprint in the sense that it's on Amazon.
You also write that just because one bad thinghappens doesn't mean others won't. That is the
(35:19):
essence of storytelling, I think. Is it not?
Virginia D (35:21):
Right. That's right.
I don't want to go too deep into it because Idon't know whether it's painful for you or not.
But in the middle of all this, you had a cancerdiagnosis. Yes.
Yeah. So that's another one of those things that,you know, like, just because one bad thing
happens, you don't get, So there, you know, thereit is. I, I had just moved to Boston maybe, you
(35:43):
know, maybe a month or so, and I didn't feel welland I didn't have a doctor and I, blah, blah. And
I went to an urgent care, and they said, oh, youhave appendicitis. And I said, oh, okay, dealing
with that. And then it was like, oh, now thatthey, you know, they see another little weird
(36:04):
thing on your bladder and you need to go check itout. And it's like, yeah, well, that's not going
to happen. Goodbye, everybody. I'm done here. Andthen, you know, then it became. Then it was a
little touch of cancer, of bladder cancer, but itbecame again, it was so absurd, like, really? Is
(36:25):
that really gonna happen? And then that becamefunny.
So I love that you have, for lack of a betterterm, gallows humor about all these sort of very
difficult, dark, potentially dark and devastatingthings that happen to you. But you, if you don't
look at it, is. If you don't laugh, you'll cry. Sowhy not laugh? I have the same way of looking at
(36:48):
things. I get upset about what things that happen,but I always try to step back and have some kind
of a sense of humor about it. And I think as anartist, if you don't, you're really not going to
create much art.
Yeah. Well, it will be very depressing.
That's it. That's the problem. It's depressing youalso, to quote you again in the book, you say
there is no right way to age, which is true. Ifwe're lucky, we all get to age for a good, long,
(37:14):
healthy time, and then things start to happen,because that's what happens in age. how do you
think we should look at aging? How do you thinkthat the art artist should look at aging?
I often say this. We are very lucky to get old.
Most creatures don't get to be old. They geteaten. People really hate when I say that,
(37:35):
especially peers who are complaining about theiraches and their pains. It's like, well, so that's
kind of how I feel. And I feel like I'm having areally good time. I'm sort of, you know, here. I
wanted to be a writer since I was like, you know,whatever, you know, at that desk. And now I'm in
my 70s, and I'm having a good time. I'm, on a pet,a podcast. Publish the Modern Love. It's like, I'm
(38:02):
doing this in my 70s. That's kind of fun.
Sure, Absolutely. Well, you know, clearly you'renot sitting around twiddling your thumbs, waiting
for some inevitability to happen. You're out theremaking things happen and living your life. And I
think that that's. That's where the ideas for thenext book come from.
Virginia DeLuca (38:21):
Right.
So I do think that this particular book, eventhough it's obviously a memoir, it reads a little
bit novelesque. And I'm assuming that was anintention on your part as you were writing it,
that it felt pictorial as you were writing it.
Well, it's very interesting because when we werein class, right, you know, I had written a novel.
(38:41):
I had written a lot of novels. Not that I hadpublished, but I had done a lot of fiction. And,
you know, a lot of people in the class had notnecessarily done that. And so we were learning all
sorts of things about creating worlds andcharacters and how to sort of use those that
craft. What I really wanted was to have a bookthat kind of pulled somebody, a reader along.
(39:09):
That way they'll keep reading and maybe tellothers to also read.
Yeah. And also it felt there was a. Somethingvery. I didn't know what was happening. And. And
Perry for. Actually gave me a mystery. You know,he was basically. He kept changing a story. And I
realized, oh, let's lean into that mystery,because we wanted to Know what happened.
(39:33):
I think that, there's a potential here, if youcould get it to the right people, that it could be
turned into some kind of a movie or a shortminiseries. Is that something that you're
considering doing?
Well, if you hear anybody who might be interestedor. I would consider that those are.
(39:54):
Those are long shots in any and all cases. but younever know. You know, if it gets out there in the
world. This has that kind of feel to it where it.
You do. You are smart in writing it like a mysteryin many ways. So that. How does this thing. How
does this onion peel back and the layer afterlayer that you're trying to figure out why and how
(40:14):
and what's going on. And as you say, the storykeeps changing, so you don't know what's going on.
Now, there were. There's nothing, traditionallymurder mystery esque about it or, you know, those
kinds of mysteries, but it is a mystery. And Ithink the.
That.
That was a very, very smart way for you to playit. So. All right. How important do you think,
writing your own story. You already alluded to ita little bit. How important do you think your
(40:38):
psychotherapy work impacted your memoir, whereyou're thinking about your own story? Did it. Did
you use that. Your knowledge and education andexperience in that to. To dig in?
Yeah. I mean, what I try to think about a lot was,how could I have not known? How did I not know
(41:01):
this man was in so much pain? How did I not knowthat he really was so deceptive? How could I not
know? So then I had to go back, you know, as we'retalking about therapy, then we sort of always go
back, you know, to the origins. Right. And sort oflike, well, what was happening? What was
(41:21):
happening, happening. And then. So that sort ofhelped me to sort of say, okay, what was really
happening with my father? What was reallyhappening with my brother? and so that's when I
began to sort of really sort of weave that in.
So. So wait a second. Let's talk about that for asecond. I find that really interesting. You were
(41:42):
looking at it from what. What was happening inyour personal world and how that reflected in the
marriage where you weren't seeing something. Am Igetting that right?
Yeah. In other words, there's that piece. There'salso. Here I am in a situation where I have
supposedly. I mean, not supposedly, I was totallyin love with somebody who turned out to be very
(42:07):
deceptive. If I really examine the past, there area lot of deceptive people who I Was majorly in
love with, like, my father, my brother, you know.
In other words, these were important people in mylives. And they also, if, were very deceptive.
(42:29):
Do you think that you were blinded by that? Isthat a good way to say it?
I think that might be a little simplistic, maybe.
It's sort of more like, I think.
Did you want to believe them? It was just yourdesire to believe them was so strong.
I mean, I didn't find out about the stuff about myfather until way after. Right, right. He was just
(42:53):
my father. He was just my father who did all thesethings. And da, da, da, da, da, da. And I
realized, when I look back, I realized, oh, so hewas somebody who clearly was having a whole other
life. So there's a mix of denial.
There's a strong theme in your life about this,isn't there?
Yeah. Right. So I had to sort of look at thosethemes and sort of say, what does that mean?
(43:17):
you know what? I think you've got many more booksif you want to keep exploring that theme. because
I think that's a very big theme in a lot ofpeople's lives. And I think people relate to that
because. And you know this way better than I dobecause it's your business to know it. You can. No
matter how close you are to someone, you can neveractually know them wholly. And I think even we
(43:39):
have a hard time wholly understanding our ownselves. So how can you understand something I
don't understand?
Right, Exactly. And we all are deceptive to someextent.
Oh, I don't think it's possible to be human andnot be deceptive, which is pretty fascinating. I
think it's extremely fascinating. And it's a true,truly human element. Because I don't think we have
(44:04):
too many other creatures that we know of, atleast, who are deceptive in that way. It's just
humans. And. And why. I mean, why are we deceptivein that way? But I think we. We lie to ourselves,
we lie to others, even if it's little white lies.
We do it all day long. You know, whatever it is.
People tell little white lies all day long. Andthen some people tell great big lies. That's then
(44:29):
a whole other story. So I'm curious. I ask thesekinds of questions a lot. I'm sure during the
course of your putting the book out, you certainlywent through some kind of editorial process.
Yes. So, there was, a whole. As I told you, wewent into the. We had all this editing happening
in class from the other writers in that class, wealways had, we had what they call an external
(44:55):
writer, so a published writer who would then lookat the whole rough draft. And then we did that a
few times actually. And then when I got, whenthis, this particular publisher is a student run
press, so I hired an editor to do it, to reallycarefully do all the editing. Because this was,
(45:17):
you know, this was a small university press thatbasically has a four semester class to go from
acquisition editor all the way to the end. And itwas really fun to work with the students. It was
really great. All.
Ah, right. So between them and your professionaleditor that you hired, you certainly got back
(45:40):
notes and thoughts and considerations and you thenas the author, you have the right to accept, or
reject. And I'm just curious, how did you handlenotes? How do you think about note taking?
I think feedback is extraordinarily important.
Obviously we have to know how people, how peopleare responding to what we're writing. We don't
(46:07):
know how it lands unless we have somebody who'sgoing to give us feedback. Now if you have a bunch
of feedback, you can sort of reject the ones thatare outliers. But if everybody's saying, you know,
that doesn't make any sense. And you know thatit's so, it's so confusing, it's ridiculous,
whatever, then you have to fix it.
(46:28):
Did you go through anything where somebody gaveyou a note and they were confused but you realized
that there was nothing confusing about it. Did yougo through anything like that where you just
rejected the note entire?
Yeah, I mean sometimes people give opinion,opinions instead of critique. Like I don't, I
think I say something like I basically make itsound as if 60 years old is old, not anymore. And
(46:55):
people were like, you know, and I was sort ofsaying, you know, my later in life love, you know,
was, had an end date and people, a number ofpeople didn't like that. It was like, come on, you
got it. You know that's not true. It's like, no, Ilike that. That's true. That was true.
That there is an end date, Is that what you'resaying?
You know, like it's opposed to like if you fall inlove with somebody at 20, you, you might imagine
(47:21):
living for a very, very long time. If you fall inlove at 50, it has a natural end date.
Oh, oh, sure. That there's no doubt about that.
You're not going to live to be a thousand yearsold. No one that I'm aware of ever has. So, yeah,
there's going to be a sell by date at some point.
on the whole thing. I'm having just the mostfascinating conversation with Ginny DeLuca and
(47:45):
we're going to wind the show down just a littlebit. Now you've already told us a story that you,
that I assume was the weird, quirky, offbeatstranger, just plain funny story. So we'll just
leave that as is. And then want to ask you in yourexperiences, do you have folks that come up to you
and ask you for advice on how to write? And thenwhat kind of advice do you, do you give someone
(48:08):
who is maybe just starting out as a writer ormaybe they're in a little bit trying to get to the
next level?
I really do believe that people should engage in awriting workshop or a class or something like that
because I do think m having feedback about howpeople are responding. It doesn't mean you have to
(48:29):
use it necessarily all the time or agree with whatthey say, but it's very important, I think, to
have that. And you learn a lot, also especiallylearning other people's drafts. It's, you really
learn a lot.
You learn from their, from their mistakes.
From their mistakes or where you're noticing, oh,they're, they're not making, you know, I don't
(48:50):
like that part, you know, and you, you can, youhave to try to articulate to the writer about why
you don't like that. That's very useful. I alsobelieve that having other people who, who you're
working with help you, helps you have moreconfidence. You get some, you get some positive
(49:12):
mirrors, you know. Oh, yes, that's funny. Oh yes,I really like that line. That's a hard thing to do
all by yourself sitting in a room. So it helpswith the self doubt, I think.
Well, you just said it. It's as we talked aboutearlier, whether you're partnered with someone, a
collaborator, that makes things a little easierbecause you are getting that feedback. But if you
(49:35):
are writing alone, which most writers do, thenthat feedback loop isn't there at all except for
yourself. And prior to you putting it out into theworld where it can fall flat on its face, it's
good to have a little feedback ahead of time. Andyeah, that's really helpful to go into a workshop
or to give it to friends who may be willing toread something and give you their thoughts.
(49:59):
That's, I think, very, very valuable advice. AndI, you know, it's interesting in the, world of
motion pictures and tv, you're constantly gettingthat feedback, because you're always working in
collaboration with all kinds of people, whetherthey're designers or directors or producers or
whatever, marketing people, you're always gettingfeedback. But in the world of writing books, not
(50:21):
so much until you get toward the end of yourproject, unless you're in a workshop. So I think
that's very, very wise and valuable advice.
I also believe that we should do. People shouldnot be so snobby.
What does that mean? What do you mean?
I mean, like, you know, when people are, you know,they've written up a project, they're ready to
send it out, they feel it's really good, but theyonly want the big five, publishers or they want
(50:47):
only the best agent. And sometimes there's. There,you know, I could not get. I got an agent finally
for this. She went through 12 submissions andcould not sell it at all. I was ready to put it up
on the, you know, on the shelf and sort of, youknow, I'll just, I'll print it and the grandkids
(51:08):
can look at it someday. And then I took this. ThenI got this, this apprentice press. You know, it's
an unagented. No money, nothing. It's beenwonderful.
Well, that's. It's. The key is to get it out inthe world and let people have their. Their say
with it. and without that, it is on the shelf andnobody sees it except perhaps your children or
(51:31):
your relatives. yeah, I agree with that. Whatpeople don't realize is those big five publishers
or the big ten publishers, whatever they are,they're actually looking for people that are
already successful so that they can capitalize ontheir success. So you have to do something to
become successful in order to attract the bigpublishers. Unless you're somehow well connected.
(51:54):
otherwise, good luck. And so you went through anagent who tried 12 places. And I know of writers
who have gone out to 100 plus places.
Right. When I say 12, she did 12 levels ofsubmissions.
Ste (52:08):
I see. So it was 12 rounds.
It was a lot of rejections. and that's. And that'sthe other thing that has to happen with, you know,
especially with writing, you know, I'm sure withany creative. Right. It's. You gotta tolerate
rejection.
If you, if you aren't able to tolerate rejection,you are in big trouble right there. And it is hard
(52:29):
for novice writers, novice artists really, becausethey don't know how to deal with rejection because
here's my beautiful baby and you didn't like it.
Why didn't you like my beautiful baby? Well, guesswhat? Your beautiful baby may not be that
beautiful to that many people until you dosomething else or someone else says it's
beautiful. So, yeah, it's hard. It's just a hardbusiness. But you're correct. You have to stick to
(52:54):
it, you have to stay with it, or you, won'tsucceed. as they used to teach us at UCLA in,
screenwriting school, the only people who don'tsucceed are the people who give up. So there's a
lot of truth to that. Ginny DeLuca, this has beenan absolutely fabulous hour plus on story beat
today, and I can't thank you enough for your time,your energy, and for your wisdom in all this. This
(53:17):
is absolutely terrific stuff that you're doing,and I hope you do more.
Yeah. Great. Thank you so much.
And so we've come to the end of today's StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won't you please
take a moment to give us a comment, rating, orreview on whatever app or platform you're
listening to? Your support helps us bring moregreat Story Beat episodes to you. Story Beat is
(53:39):
available on all major podcast apps and platforms,including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify,
iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others. Until nexttime, I'm Steve Cuden and may all your stories
stories be unforgettable.
On today's Story Beat.
(00:02):
I really do believe that people should engage in awriting workshop or a class or something like that
because I do think having feedback about howpeople are responding, it doesn't mean you have to
use it or agree with what they say. But it's veryimportant, I think, to have that.
(00:23):
This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden. A podcast forthe creative mind. Storybeat explores how masters
of creativity develop and produce brilliant worksthat people everywhere love and admire. So join us
as we discover how talented creators find successin the worlds of imagination and entertainment.
(00:48):
Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.
Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We're comingto you from the steel City, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. My guest today, Virginia DeLuca is awriter and psychotherapist. She's the author of
the award winning novel as if Women Mattered. Herwork has appeared in the New York Times, Modern
(01:12):
Love, the Boston Globe, Vulture, the HuffingtonPost, the Iowa Review, and the Writer. Virginia is
also a graduate of Grub Street's 2020 memoirincubator. Her most recent book, if youf Must Go,
I Wish youh Triplets, is a, candid, funny andemotionally rich memoir about her divorce and
reinvention in her 60s. She published this debutmemoir at 72, proving it's never Too Late to Tell
(01:38):
youl Story. I've read if youf Must Go, I Wish youhTriplets and found it to be inspiring,
particularly regarding not giving Up. DespiteNumerous Challenges in youn Personal Life,
Virginia's book will resonate with readers who maybe navigating heartbreak, identity shifts, and the
complicated freedom that comes with starting over.
(01:58):
Virginia believes emotional resilience is builtthrough humor and friendship, both of which are
well expressed in her book. So for all thosereasons and many more, it's a great privilege for
me to welcome the insightful writer VirginiaDeLuca to story be today. Ginny, thanks so much
for joining me.
Thank you so much for having me.
Oh, it's a great pleasure to have you believethat. so let's go back in time just a little,
(02:21):
little bit. How old were you when you firststarted thinking about words and writing?
I think I was probably six or seven. Yeah. I mean,I was very into. I love desks, I love notebooks,
and I loved pens. And so I loved sitting at mydesk and sort of talking about things.
(02:42):
So you, you have a good time at Office Depot,don't you?
Yes, it was one of my favorite things. That'sright.
So what started you thinking about being a writer?
Was it books that started You.
You know, I've. I've thought about this a lotrecently, and I talked a little bit about it. It's
really probably my mother. I had always describedmy mother as sort of difficult. She's a difficult
(03:07):
woman. Right. You know, I'm 72, so, you know,that. That's been my story all along. And as I
wrote this, I realized, wow, she was the one. Forall of her difficulty, she would just hand me
books. She would just. She didn't do the library,but she would just bring home books. And I was
(03:27):
allowed to read any book that was on the shelf.
She never said, oh, you should. That you're tooyoung, or whatever.
Did you wind up reading. Did you wind up readingbooks that were above your pay grade?
Yeah, I'm sure I did. Absolutely. There was justabsolutely no, you know, question about that. We
belonged to the Unitarian Church back then, andthere were some, people there who wrote. And there
(03:54):
was Nancy Drew stories. Somebody wrote somethingthat was similar called the Judy Bolton stories.
And I don't remember the name of that author. Ididn't look it up, but I don't remember. And she
introduced me to that woman, and I thought, oh,she. So people actually, like regular people can
(04:15):
become a writer?
Regular people, as opposed to some kind of greatGod up on a pedestal?
Virginia DeLuca (04:19):
Exactly.
And so then how did you then wind up inpsychotherapy? Was it because you had a difficult
mom or what brought you there?
Yeah, that's a very long story. But yes, I mean, Ithink it has to do with that. It has to do with,
you know, some family history that had, you know,started to happen. And also, I think I was a
(04:41):
little afraid of being a writer. At a certainpoint, I had a choice. I had three kids. I had
gone to, you know, college, but had kids veryyoung at, like, 21. And then. And I was getting my
first divorce, and I was sort of thinking, like,how am I going to, you know, manage all of this?
And I had an option to go to my MSW or get mymaster's of arts. So I applied to Boston
(05:08):
University, and I got accepted in both programs.
And you chose psychotherapy as opposed to thearts?
I think, because I was afraid that I would not beable to support myself.
Well, I think that a lot of people think that. Andin fact, that's really true. It's very difficult
to support yourself as a writer in the arts. andso I think probably a wise choice. How much do you
(05:29):
think your psychotherapy training and then yoursubsequent practice influences the way you think?
About characters and how you write.
I actually think it's an interesting question togo the other way around. I think all the reading
that I've done has had major influence of, how Ido psychotherapy.
All the. You've used the observations of greatwriters over time to help your thinking about how
(05:55):
you look at humans. Yeah, I think that that's areally interesting reverse of what we would
ordinarily consider it. You write in your bookthat reading has saved my life. That's a quote.
and how has it saved your life?
Well, I use reading. I think as many usesubstances. And I, I'll read anything. You know,
(06:16):
it doesn't have to be. I'm not necessarilyliterary. You know, I love a gripping story, but,
you know, so I, you know, I use reading as a wayof sort of getting involved in other lives,
though.
Certainly in literature, pure literature. thereare lots of truly tremendous stories and great
(06:36):
characters. But that's also true in pop fictionand, and in other kinds of storytelling. there's
lots of good ways to lear about characters just bystudying them in the arts itself. So. All right,
so when did you actually start writing? Seriously?
I know you were writing as a kid, but when wereyou serious about it, where you thought, this is
something I can do or try to do?
(06:59):
So as I said, I was, I had, I was a young motherand most of my peers were feminists and they were
going off to do exciting, wonderful things. I meta very close friend and we were helping with
Postpartum Pregnant and Postpartum Women was, anagency that was. And we became very close and we
(07:24):
became good friends and stayed good friends. Andat a certain point we said, you know, we should
write a book about this. Went to the library andthere was a book called how to be Happily
Published. Again, an author I probably should havelooked up for this, but I didn't. And we followed
the actual thing. You know, it's like, this is howyou write a query, query letter. This is how you
(07:49):
do this. And we just followed it step by step bystep. And we went again to the library and we went
to, you know, publishers, and we just wentthrough, the Alphabet and a publisher that was
very small called Demner Publishing published it.
(08:10):
I mean, it was a nonfiction book.
So you were already in practice as apsychotherapist when this was going on?
No, we were just working as an agency, not, youknow, sort of a support group.
Steve Cuden (08:24):
Okay.
You know, constant support groups.
So this is before your practice then?
Virginia DeLuca (08:29):
So.
So, so did did you know at that time, did youthink to yourself, I am good enough to be a
published author? Did that go through your head?
When did you come to that decision or that, thatunderstanding that, yeah, you know what, I know
how to write. I'm good enough to be published.
I think we like, we literally wrote like two orthree chapters and sent it off. We, you know, we
(08:51):
had an outline. So it wasn't like a question of,oh, am I a good enough writer? It was like, no, we
know stuff about all this stuff. Yeah, again, youknow, friend, I believe in friendship. So, you
know, we would sort of go off each other aroundthat stuff.
Yeah, I see. It was helpful. I assume, and correctme if I'm wrong, that having another person to
(09:12):
bounce things off of and to get feedback from washelpful in that case, wasn't it?
Yes. And accountability. I have to write achapter. We did it like that. I mean, when I think
about this, it's very funny. You know, when we cutand paste, we were literally cutting and pasting.
Steve Cuden (09:29):
Oh sure.
So, you know, you have to write a chapter and thenI have to hand it to her. And then Randy had to
hand hers back and then we rewrote those chaptersand we weren't allowed to reject the other
person's corrections.
M that in and of itself, it's a little bit likethat. In the entertainment industry too. There are
(09:50):
many well known teams of writers, usually, duos,and they then are sort of forced to bring each
other to the table. And I think that there is somekind of, as you say, accountability. It helps to
have that versus writing on your own where you'renot on anybody's dime or deadline and that then
(10:11):
you have to be self disciplined, which is a wholedifferent thing.
The whole different thing. And also you reallycan't, you know, you can't dither around going,
oh, I don't know how to do this. You just do it.
You know, that's, that's a good lesson for peopleto pay attention to. That is the way to do it.
Even if you're on your own, you just do it.
Because guess what? Nobody else is going to do itfor you. So if you want it done, you need to just
(10:35):
do it. And it's a little bit like, like Nike, youjust do it. And, and so anybody, that wants to be
in the arts of any kind, but especially thelonesome arts, like being a writer, just needs to
dig in. It's hard. It's really hard. Do you now,you now write on your Own, obviously. do you find
yourself, being fairly self disciplined at thispoint in your life?
(10:58):
Yes, at this point. But it took a lot of timebecause after that I really, you know, we sort of,
we didn't, we didn't try to write together becauseof life. You know, life got busy in different
directions and then, you know, self doubt came ina lot.
Yeah, get in line.
That's right. So, you know, so I think you knowAnne Lamott who basically, you know, bird by bird.
(11:23):
Shitty first draft.
Shitty. Thank you. I've said that many times onthis show.
Yeah. And that's really. And I do that all thetime. That's how I do it. That's how. And that's
how I taught my kids how to do homework. Shittyfirst draft.
So there's truth in. From my way of thinking,there's truth in the fact that your first draft is
just a molding draft and everything else iscrafting and taking it from there into the art
(11:49):
form of writing by rewriting and revising andsculpting. And it's very difficult for first time
writers to understand that because they all thinktheir first draft is precious. They got through
it.
Vir (12:00):
That's right. That's right.
That's not it. The first draft is not precious.
And you know, and people write in different ways.
So my friend Randy, Susan Myers has published, youknow, five or six novels and she's, she writes
with a lot of outline and you know, characterthings all over the place. And I, I've never
(12:23):
written like that. It's that shitty first draft.
It really is.
Well, but you can have a shitty first draft of analbum and it's sort.
And then I begin to pull it out, sort of like,what is it that I'm actually really trying to say?
What's really happening here?
Well, I was taught in school that you don't worryabout the theme of your story until after you've
(12:45):
written a draft at least. I think this is veryvaluable. You just purge it out, what we call
purge drafts or puke drafts or whatever you wantto call it. And then you start worrying about all
the other, truly refinement parts of it.
Virginia DeLuca (12:58):
That's right.
I'm glad to hear that you do that. I find it bythe way, in my life very challenging to not
outline.
Vir (13:05):
Oh, interesting. Yes. Yeah.
So I'm an outliner. I have to know sort of inadvance where I'm going and ah, then I can make
changes as I'm going. I'm not stuck.
Virginia DeLuca (13:14):
Right.
But I have to think my way through before I startor I feel like I'm going to get lost. You're not
afraid of that at all? You just go, yeah.
I think in some ways it came from. Because I alsouse writing as a way of dealing with whatever
emotions were going on in my life. You know, I'mroiling around in all sorts of emotion, whatever
(13:35):
it is, and I start to write it down, which I'mbeginning then, to articulate and putting words
into something that's sort of incoherent.
Do you find that, that doing that is cathartic foryou?
I think it's the only thing that has kept megoing. You know, it really is like, oh my God, all
sorts of stuff is falling around I can't figureout. And then I start writing and then it make,
(13:58):
you know, begins to make sense and then I can pullout. Oh, yeah, that's clear.
And thus how writing has, Writing and reading, Iguess, have saved your life.
Right?
That's very, very good. are you still in practiceas a psychotherapist?
Yeah, I have a small private practice, yeah.
Okay, so how do you find the time to do both?
Well, as I said, a small private practice, I did alot of writing and when I was working full time or
(14:24):
extra full time, I have always been a very earlyriser. I mean, since I've been like a kid. You
know, when I was a young woman girl, onsleepovers, I would fall asleep. I do a lot of my
writing in the dark. So it's like, you know, fouro' clock in the morning and nobody's there to talk
(14:45):
to me. There's no phone calls, there's no, youknow, none of that. And that's when I do a lot of
writing.
And that's your habit and practice in terms ofbeing a writer?
Yes. Yeah.
And, and that therefore you're able to find thetime quite easily because it's. You're not
impinging on any part of the rest of your day.
Exactly.
Interesting, interesting. So tell the listenersabout your first book. As if Women Mattered, which
(15:08):
I've not read, but I'm curious, what's that about?
So there were four women. It's an autobiographicalnovel. But the idea isn't. It's not the actual
details of it, but there were four women and weformed a, women's group and we all were young
mothers. And so this is the story of the women'smovement, basically in the, in the women's group,
(15:33):
you know, consciousness raising group. Youprobably remember, have Heard.
Steve Cuden (15:37):
I certainly do.
Yeah. And I think, it was really written with theidea of, like, this is such an amazing time to
have been alive in a. As a woman. So.
So this was fictionalized version of yourexperience.
Yeah. So there were four women, but yet theactual. Actually, I joke about. It's not the four
(16:01):
women that were actually in the women's group.
It's all of me. It's basically. This is one partof me. This is another part of me. This another
part of me.
And so then, of course, now you've published amemoir which is based totally on reality. I assume
I said you didn't make anything up. which do youprefer to write? Do you have a preference between
(16:22):
writing things that are fictional and non.
It's interesting. So that. So that novel probablytook about 20 years to write. And just because I
was busy doing all this other stuff. Right. And.
And I always thought that I would only writenovels. And I have written a lot of novels. Not a
lot. I've written a bunch, like maybe four, butthey're in the draw, you know, they're not. They
(16:48):
have never. Now I am finding. Doing sort ofpersonal essays to be. I love it. I've been really
having a good time. I had never really writtenessays before I did this book.
And those are truly personal about you?
Virgin (17:03):
Yes, they're, all. Yeah.
Do you think of yourself as you're writing thesepersonal stories, as you're telling a story? Are
you a storyteller in writing these?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's sort of like, youknow, yes, this happened, and this is why it might
be. It's a personal story that I'm pretty sureother people would relate to, but they might not
(17:26):
want to be talking about it.
Well, the nightly news is filled with stories, andthey're real. So storytelling does not necessarily
imply fiction. we each tell ourselves storiesabout our day to one another, and that's how we
communicate, and it's still storytelling. So. Sothat's why I was curious if you think of yourself
as I'm telling stories about myself.
(17:48):
Yes. And I. I mean, I think about this a lot. Andit's a mix of. That I talk about in terms of
therapy, is that we all tell stories about ourlife, as you just said, and sometimes we get very
stuck in a story and we have to sort of mayberevise a little bit or we have to sort of really
reframe it a little bit.
(18:08):
So what do you think then? Makes a good story?
Good? Why. Why write about it? Why Read it. Whatmakes a good story attractive?
I, think for me reading a story is my connectionto those characters or to that, to that writer. In
some ways it feels. It feels to me like a mindmelding sometimes, you know, like, oh, right, this
(18:35):
person is actually articulating exactly, exactlywhat I have felt or known or. And have never
articulated myself. Something like that.
Do you ever write stuff that's so personal youjust don't show it to.
Anybody in terms of, like, journaling and stuff?
Yes. Yeah. I mean, sometimes my writing orjournaling or that kind of stuff is just raw
(18:57):
emotion. And I, really wouldn't want people toread it because it might not be nice.
So let's talk for a moment about if you must go, Iwish you triplets, which I was fascinated in
reading. it's kind of what you just described, butrefined. Well refined and well written. it's not
just you just purging anything out. Althoughthere's a lot there that's clearly from your
(19:21):
emotional life and from your challengingexperiences. So tell the listeners a little bit
more about what that book is about.
So this is the story that happened. I was marriedwith my second marriage, and I was happily,
happily. I believed I was totally happily in love.
And I love it. Kept talking about, oh, secondmarriages, later in life. Love is the best, is the
(19:47):
best. And then he came home and said, I don't wantto be married anymore, I don't find you
attractive, and I want to have a baby. And I was,just. I mean, I was totally shocked. I'm also a
therapist. It was like, how could I be shocked?
How could the, how could I have missed that? Sothere was all those kinds of things. I basically
(20:11):
waved him goodbye. said, okay, you know, I, I justam, like, totally stunned. And I was probably a
little bit in shock, actually. I mean, you know,sort of. and I basically opened the computer and I
started writing. Titled it, you know, this, youknow, Perry's leaving. And I said, you know,
here's the. Says middle aged older woman basicallygetting dumped for a younger person. though I
(20:36):
didn't know what the story was at the time, butit's so trite, whatever. But I needed to write it
down. And I just did pages and pages. I treated itas I was doing film, like shooting film. Every,
every text, every email, you know, I, you know,wrote down all the, you know, all the
(20:56):
conversations that we had, said, I can't make anysense of this, but I'm going to look at it at some
Point.
So did you find, obviously you were using it as toget at your own, problems with it, with your own
issues with it? how hard did you find it to diginto that sort of challenging life experience?
Was it hard to go back to it or just to. I wasliterally just writing it down. I was literally.
(21:21):
As it was happening, were you.
Were you reliving it in your mind's eye as youwere writing it down?
I really, I mean, I really kept thinking about itas shooting. You know, I'm. I'm shooting film.
I'll edit it when I figure it out what'shappening.
So you were being like a reporter from the field.
You were reporting on your life as if you were alittle disappointed, passionate about.
Right. You know, what people told me, what peoplesaid to me, all those kinds of things. When. So I
(21:46):
had all those pages. Now I'm getting, you know,it's like, you know, 67, I'm about to leave my
therapy agency practice. I applied to be thememoir in the, memoir incubator at Grub street,
and I got accepted. I had taken, I think it waslike 50 pages from that journal. Then I had to
(22:07):
look at it and then sort of say, what's the story?
What is the story? You know, I started out itbeing like, oh, boy, you know, somebody done
something wrong and to try to really shit, youknow, to really, what is the story? Is it the
story of being, you know, the saddest woman in theworld or what? And that was a phenomenal program.
(22:31):
So we're back to this notion of you've purged thisinformation out, and it's personal information,
but nevertheless it's information. And now youtake this, for lack of a better word, lumpy bunch
of clay, and now you're gonna sculpt it intosomething beautiful to look at and consider.
And then also I took it and sort of said, okay, sohow is this related to the rest of my life? That's
(22:55):
probably the psychotherapy part of me that's, youknow, oh, this story. Oh, how is that story fit to
this, to this current story?
So you were able to step back from all of it inthe writing of it and then in the analysis of it,
you were able to sort of take, an outer viewperspective and look at it analytically.
Virginia DeLuca (23:17):
Yeah.
And did you find that fun to do or hard to do, orwas it just, an exercise that was just
interesting, to do?
How did you look at, was fascinating to do this?
Because ever do this? I'm, just sort of re goingthrough some of the. My most painful parts of my
life. And what was also interesting is it's beingread in the class and it turned out to be somewhat
(23:45):
funny. And I was thinking, okay, that's veryinteresting. This is the hardest part of my life,
and yet it's funny.
St (23:55):
Doesn't that make it better?
Yeah, I mean, it was. It sort of gave that sortof. Then it became sort of. Then it. It felt like
craft. Now I was crafting.
So there's no question, when you read the book, atleast from my perspective, there was no question
that I was reading something that was painful. Itwas painful for you to go through. It's clearly,
(24:16):
Couldn't have been any fun for you to go through.
And yet the perspective that you take when youwrote it is, is this. I don't want to say
humorous. It's not really a humor book, but it'slighthearted in the way that you look at it. And
that even through all these difficulties and someof it's like, oh, my goodness, this could not have
been good. and yet you took that perspective. Wasthere anything that you did to get to that tone,
(24:41):
or did you just discover it in the workshop?
Well, it felt a little. I mean, some of it was alittle absurd. There's literally. There's a
section probably really at the very beginning,where I call up and I call all the people that I
know, and I say, you know, my husband has just.
Perry just left, and he. Because he wants to havea baby. And he's 60s, you know, he's 60s year old,
(25:09):
and people are giving me things back. Oh, maybe hehas dementia. Oh, maybe he's already, you know,
maybe he had a uti, you know, a urinary tract. Infact, even as I wrote that down the next day, and
I wrote it down the next day, just literally what.
You know, it was funny. Even at that moment, I'mweeping, you know, I'm, sniveling, and I'm. And
(25:34):
it's funny.
So that's the old adage of, if I don't laugh, I'llcry. But you were doing a little of.
Virginia De (25:39):
Both, right in the.
In your author's note at the beginning of thebook. You write, and I quote, writing a memoir
involves assembling imperfect and subjectivememories. Okay, I think I know what that means.
What do you think that means?
Well, this is my story, right? So I had. I wouldguess that Perry, my ex husband, had a very
(26:02):
different story.
Steve Cuden (26:03):
No doubt.
And that's the imperfect memory, right? That's.
It's very subjective. I was having my experiences,and I'm talking about it. And as much as I was
aligned with what I had written down and theemails that are actual, very real, I'm still
shifting a story.
(26:24):
It's the reason why eyewitness testimony in courtcan sometimes be very faulty, because you can get
three eyewitnesses to give you three differentperspectives entirely. And that's what you're
saying is. So. All right, so while you're dealingwith the imperfect and subjective memories that
are, from your story as a memoirist, how do youdeal with it? Do you just plow through it? Like,
(26:46):
as you say, you just purge it out? Or do you haveways of thinking about being less subjective?
Again? This is from the. The class, actually.
There's the I narrator and the. The I character,and we were really talking about that all the
time. So the I character is what's happening onthe page. You know, oh, my God, he left. And I'm
(27:11):
weeping and I'm crying, and I'm doing this. Andthe I narrator has now taken a step out and is
going to comment about that. And that, I think,was exceptionally useful to do.
M. Did you do anything beyond that to develop thewhole story? How long did it take you to take this
(27:32):
material and mold it into pretty much achronological story?
What was amazing about this program is we got inthis program and we had one year, and we had to
write two full drafts within one year. That wasprobably the hardest thing I've ever done through
all of master's degrees, all of it. And we werereading. Right. We were reading all the material
(27:59):
for all the other people in the class. Nine of ustook that class, and four of us published.
That's substantial. Four out of nine.
and we really worked hard at that. And. And weended right at the end of COVID We decided. So the
class, basically the last two classes were, youknow, on Zoom. And we decided to keep meeting
(28:27):
every weekday morning from 9 to 12, and we wouldsit and write in front of the other people on the
little squares. and as we were doing on thecomputer.
So this class was a Zoom class.
This was after the. Right after the Grub streetclass. And Covid came then the rest of the year.
(28:52):
So that was all for rewriting.
Was the class in person, or was that also on Zoom?
Yeah, the class was in person.
The class was in person prior to the pandemic, soyou could actually get together without any kind
of problem. did you also then, as you were workingthis story. Did you then go and research anything,
like go back or interview people or, find otherinformation you needed, or was it completely out
(29:16):
of your mind's eye?
It was completely. What was in my. In that. In thejournal, you.
During the course of the story, you write that youwound up wondering if you would be homeless at one
point, and that once you had sold your house, youweren't sure. How did you overcome that while
being in the middle of life? I have. What did youdo?
(29:38):
Well, I was exaggerating. I mean, I think I wasreally. I was afraid of. That it wasn't going to
happen. You know, I had, you know, I had to sellthe house, you know, and so. And I got a lot of
help. People were remarkable. I really learned anenormous amount about, about. Of love, really. You
(30:05):
know, so here I lost this love and, you know, andthen I really was. Felt like I was surrounded by
love and people, you know, sort of helping to sortof pull that all, you know, to put me together. I
went from New Hampshire, I moved, I came toBoston, all that kind of stuff.
Well, you know, the cliche is that love isinfinite. And so you have it in little pieces in
(30:28):
your existence, but it's also everywhere at thesame time. And sometimes it's hard to see it or
find it, but it's there. You just have to seek itout, I guess is the best way to say it. You said
that when you were going through this, wherenothing made sense to you, and again, this is your
practice and habit is when nothing makes sense toyou to sit down and journal. Is that right?
Virg (30:50):
You know, you've probably,
Julia Cameron, Art the Artist's Way.
I probably read that book around the time shepublished it, and I took it to heart. And, you
know, you write three pages every single day. Now,obviously, people don't actually write three pages
(31:10):
every single day for 50 years. But whenever thingswere really difficult for my life, I would say,
okay, it's morning pages. And I would literally goon to, you know, these big black notebooks,
sketchbooks, and do three pages, you know, for.
And I would do that.
(31:30):
And what would happen to you on days when youweren't doing that or couldn't do it for some
reason? Would you feel it?
Oh, yes. It alters my whole sense of intenseemotional trauma type stuff. Right. Is in our
bodies. And I think it helps sort of settle itdown. So now I could, you know, go off to work. I
(31:52):
knew who I was doing. I was driving, you know, allthose Kinds of things. So yeah, correct me if I'm
wrong.
I think it gives you two things. I think it doespurge those things out so you can get it off your
chest and it's not sitting on your, sitting onyour consciousness. And it also then helps you to
have perspective on the whole thing.
Virginia DeLuca (32:09):
Right.
I think that's really excellent. You do have inthe book of Julia Cameron a Julia Cameron quote
which you say you put over your desk. And I'llquote it because I thought it was fabulous. do you
know how old I'll be when I finally finish thisthing? The answer is yes. The same age you'll be
if you don't.
Vi (32:27):
Right. Isn't that wonderful?
Exquisite advice. so that's the old thing about,you know, whichever way you say it, it'll be true.
you know what, however you work on this project,whichever way you go, it will be true either way,
whether you do it or don't do it, whether you sayyou're going to do it, whether you say you won't
do it, whatever it is. so at the time that youwere ah, going through this, you were on the verge
(32:51):
of publishing your first book. And so what didthat do to you and how did you work your way
through it?
So he left on May 15th and my launch was July, Imean June 17th or something like that. So the
launch was already set. We had a party, you know,scheduled there. It was a contest that involved
(33:13):
two other. So I won first prize. The, the secondand third prize were, were all going to be there.
And so I had to do it, I had to launch, I had tofigure out what I was going to read and I had to
launch and then I did nothing after that. Thenthat was, it said goodbye. It was an out of body
(33:35):
experience. Life is really great. Now I have tosell this book house and I have to move and I
never did one thing for that book at all. And fastforward many years later I write the book, the
memoir that talks about what was happening, aboutwhy I could not do that. And now my novel is, is
(34:03):
selling. And I find that extraordinarily ironicbecause.
Steve Cu (34:08):
Because of the memoir?
Virginia DeLuca (34:10):
Yes.
So people are reading about it in the memoir, thenthey get interested in finding out the the first
book.
Right.
That is very interesting. Well, that's sometimestrue for all kinds of art. You know, if you
people. By the way, it's not uncommon, there's adouble negative, but it's not uncommon for an
artist to create and create and create and createand not really catch fire for a long time. And
(34:34):
then once they cat, then all the earlier stuffstarts to catch fire too. That's not unusual to
have happened. And that's what you're talkingabout, is that people like something deeper in and
then go back and explore the earlier work.
And the thing is that it was a very tiny, youknow, it was a very tiny publisher. It was a, you
(34:55):
know, a books owner who decided to put a contestup and then published a book. So it was very tiny.
I'm curious, the publisher still had it in printor did they reprint? What did they do?
It's still in print. I mean, it's still. It's inprint in the sense that it's on Amazon.
You also write that just because one bad thinghappens doesn't mean others won't. That is the
(35:19):
essence of storytelling, I think. Is it not?
Virginia D (35:21):
Right. That's right.
I don't want to go too deep into it because Idon't know whether it's painful for you or not.
But in the middle of all this, you had a cancerdiagnosis. Yes.
Yeah. So that's another one of those things that,you know, like, just because one bad thing
happens, you don't get, So there, you know, thereit is. I, I had just moved to Boston maybe, you
(35:43):
know, maybe a month or so, and I didn't feel welland I didn't have a doctor and I, blah, blah. And
I went to an urgent care, and they said, oh, youhave appendicitis. And I said, oh, okay, dealing
with that. And then it was like, oh, now thatthey, you know, they see another little weird
(36:04):
thing on your bladder and you need to go check itout. And it's like, yeah, well, that's not going
to happen. Goodbye, everybody. I'm done here. Andthen, you know, then it became. Then it was a
little touch of cancer, of bladder cancer, but itbecame again, it was so absurd, like, really? Is
(36:25):
that really gonna happen? And then that becamefunny.
So I love that you have, for lack of a betterterm, gallows humor about all these sort of very
difficult, dark, potentially dark and devastatingthings that happen to you. But you, if you don't
look at it, is. If you don't laugh, you'll cry. Sowhy not laugh? I have the same way of looking at
(36:48):
things. I get upset about what things that happen,but I always try to step back and have some kind
of a sense of humor about it. And I think as anartist, if you don't, you're really not going to
create much art.
Yeah. Well, it will be very depressing.
That's it. That's the problem. It's depressing youalso, to quote you again in the book, you say
there is no right way to age, which is true. Ifwe're lucky, we all get to age for a good, long,
(37:14):
healthy time, and then things start to happen,because that's what happens in age. how do you
think we should look at aging? How do you thinkthat the art artist should look at aging?
I often say this. We are very lucky to get old.
Most creatures don't get to be old. They geteaten. People really hate when I say that,
(37:35):
especially peers who are complaining about theiraches and their pains. It's like, well, so that's
kind of how I feel. And I feel like I'm having areally good time. I'm sort of, you know, here. I
wanted to be a writer since I was like, you know,whatever, you know, at that desk. And now I'm in
my 70s, and I'm having a good time. I'm, on a pet,a podcast. Publish the Modern Love. It's like, I'm
(38:02):
doing this in my 70s. That's kind of fun.
Sure, Absolutely. Well, you know, clearly you'renot sitting around twiddling your thumbs, waiting
for some inevitability to happen. You're out theremaking things happen and living your life. And I
think that that's. That's where the ideas for thenext book come from.
Virginia DeLuca (38:21):
Right.
So I do think that this particular book, eventhough it's obviously a memoir, it reads a little
bit novelesque. And I'm assuming that was anintention on your part as you were writing it,
that it felt pictorial as you were writing it.
Well, it's very interesting because when we werein class, right, you know, I had written a novel.
(38:41):
I had written a lot of novels. Not that I hadpublished, but I had done a lot of fiction. And,
you know, a lot of people in the class had notnecessarily done that. And so we were learning all
sorts of things about creating worlds andcharacters and how to sort of use those that
craft. What I really wanted was to have a bookthat kind of pulled somebody, a reader along.
(39:09):
That way they'll keep reading and maybe tellothers to also read.
Yeah. And also it felt there was a. Somethingvery. I didn't know what was happening. And. And
Perry for. Actually gave me a mystery. You know,he was basically. He kept changing a story. And I
realized, oh, let's lean into that mystery,because we wanted to Know what happened.
(39:33):
I think that, there's a potential here, if youcould get it to the right people, that it could be
turned into some kind of a movie or a shortminiseries. Is that something that you're
considering doing?
Well, if you hear anybody who might be interestedor. I would consider that those are.
(39:54):
Those are long shots in any and all cases. but younever know. You know, if it gets out there in the
world. This has that kind of feel to it where it.
You do. You are smart in writing it like a mysteryin many ways. So that. How does this thing. How
does this onion peel back and the layer afterlayer that you're trying to figure out why and how
(40:14):
and what's going on. And as you say, the storykeeps changing, so you don't know what's going on.
Now, there were. There's nothing, traditionallymurder mystery esque about it or, you know, those
kinds of mysteries, but it is a mystery. And Ithink the.
That.
That was a very, very smart way for you to playit. So. All right. How important do you think,
writing your own story. You already alluded to ita little bit. How important do you think your
(40:38):
psychotherapy work impacted your memoir, whereyou're thinking about your own story? Did it. Did
you use that. Your knowledge and education andexperience in that to. To dig in?
Yeah. I mean, what I try to think about a lot was,how could I have not known? How did I not know
(41:01):
this man was in so much pain? How did I not knowthat he really was so deceptive? How could I not
know? So then I had to go back, you know, as we'retalking about therapy, then we sort of always go
back, you know, to the origins. Right. And sort oflike, well, what was happening? What was
(41:21):
happening, happening. And then. So that sort ofhelped me to sort of say, okay, what was really
happening with my father? What was reallyhappening with my brother? and so that's when I
began to sort of really sort of weave that in.
So. So wait a second. Let's talk about that for asecond. I find that really interesting. You were
(41:42):
looking at it from what. What was happening inyour personal world and how that reflected in the
marriage where you weren't seeing something. Am Igetting that right?
Yeah. In other words, there's that piece. There'salso. Here I am in a situation where I have
supposedly. I mean, not supposedly, I was totallyin love with somebody who turned out to be very
(42:07):
deceptive. If I really examine the past, there area lot of deceptive people who I Was majorly in
love with, like, my father, my brother, you know.
In other words, these were important people in mylives. And they also, if, were very deceptive.
(42:29):
Do you think that you were blinded by that? Isthat a good way to say it?
I think that might be a little simplistic, maybe.
It's sort of more like, I think.
Did you want to believe them? It was just yourdesire to believe them was so strong.
I mean, I didn't find out about the stuff about myfather until way after. Right, right. He was just
(42:53):
my father. He was just my father who did all thesethings. And da, da, da, da, da, da. And I
realized, when I look back, I realized, oh, so hewas somebody who clearly was having a whole other
life. So there's a mix of denial.
There's a strong theme in your life about this,isn't there?
Yeah. Right. So I had to sort of look at thosethemes and sort of say, what does that mean?
(43:17):
you know what? I think you've got many more booksif you want to keep exploring that theme. because
I think that's a very big theme in a lot ofpeople's lives. And I think people relate to that
because. And you know this way better than I dobecause it's your business to know it. You can. No
matter how close you are to someone, you can neveractually know them wholly. And I think even we
(43:39):
have a hard time wholly understanding our ownselves. So how can you understand something I
don't understand?
Right, Exactly. And we all are deceptive to someextent.
Oh, I don't think it's possible to be human andnot be deceptive, which is pretty fascinating. I
think it's extremely fascinating. And it's a true,truly human element. Because I don't think we have
(44:04):
too many other creatures that we know of, atleast, who are deceptive in that way. It's just
humans. And. And why. I mean, why are we deceptivein that way? But I think we. We lie to ourselves,
we lie to others, even if it's little white lies.
We do it all day long. You know, whatever it is.
People tell little white lies all day long. Andthen some people tell great big lies. That's then
(44:29):
a whole other story. So I'm curious. I ask thesekinds of questions a lot. I'm sure during the
course of your putting the book out, you certainlywent through some kind of editorial process.
Yes. So, there was, a whole. As I told you, wewent into the. We had all this editing happening
in class from the other writers in that class, wealways had, we had what they call an external
(44:55):
writer, so a published writer who would then lookat the whole rough draft. And then we did that a
few times actually. And then when I got, whenthis, this particular publisher is a student run
press, so I hired an editor to do it, to reallycarefully do all the editing. Because this was,
(45:17):
you know, this was a small university press thatbasically has a four semester class to go from
acquisition editor all the way to the end. And itwas really fun to work with the students. It was
really great. All.
Ah, right. So between them and your professionaleditor that you hired, you certainly got back
(45:40):
notes and thoughts and considerations and you thenas the author, you have the right to accept, or
reject. And I'm just curious, how did you handlenotes? How do you think about note taking?
I think feedback is extraordinarily important.
Obviously we have to know how people, how peopleare responding to what we're writing. We don't
(46:07):
know how it lands unless we have somebody who'sgoing to give us feedback. Now if you have a bunch
of feedback, you can sort of reject the ones thatare outliers. But if everybody's saying, you know,
that doesn't make any sense. And you know thatit's so, it's so confusing, it's ridiculous,
whatever, then you have to fix it.
(46:28):
Did you go through anything where somebody gaveyou a note and they were confused but you realized
that there was nothing confusing about it. Did yougo through anything like that where you just
rejected the note entire?
Yeah, I mean sometimes people give opinion,opinions instead of critique. Like I don't, I
think I say something like I basically make itsound as if 60 years old is old, not anymore. And
(46:55):
people were like, you know, and I was sort ofsaying, you know, my later in life love, you know,
was, had an end date and people, a number ofpeople didn't like that. It was like, come on, you
got it. You know that's not true. It's like, no, Ilike that. That's true. That was true.
That there is an end date, Is that what you'resaying?
You know, like it's opposed to like if you fall inlove with somebody at 20, you, you might imagine
(47:21):
living for a very, very long time. If you fall inlove at 50, it has a natural end date.
Oh, oh, sure. That there's no doubt about that.
You're not going to live to be a thousand yearsold. No one that I'm aware of ever has. So, yeah,
there's going to be a sell by date at some point.
on the whole thing. I'm having just the mostfascinating conversation with Ginny DeLuca and
(47:45):
we're going to wind the show down just a littlebit. Now you've already told us a story that you,
that I assume was the weird, quirky, offbeatstranger, just plain funny story. So we'll just
leave that as is. And then want to ask you in yourexperiences, do you have folks that come up to you
and ask you for advice on how to write? And thenwhat kind of advice do you, do you give someone
(48:08):
who is maybe just starting out as a writer ormaybe they're in a little bit trying to get to the
next level?
I really do believe that people should engage in awriting workshop or a class or something like that
because I do think m having feedback about howpeople are responding. It doesn't mean you have to
(48:29):
use it necessarily all the time or agree with whatthey say, but it's very important, I think, to
have that. And you learn a lot, also especiallylearning other people's drafts. It's, you really
learn a lot.
You learn from their, from their mistakes.
From their mistakes or where you're noticing, oh,they're, they're not making, you know, I don't
(48:50):
like that part, you know, and you, you can, youhave to try to articulate to the writer about why
you don't like that. That's very useful. I alsobelieve that having other people who, who you're
working with help you, helps you have moreconfidence. You get some, you get some positive
(49:12):
mirrors, you know. Oh, yes, that's funny. Oh yes,I really like that line. That's a hard thing to do
all by yourself sitting in a room. So it helpswith the self doubt, I think.
Well, you just said it. It's as we talked aboutearlier, whether you're partnered with someone, a
collaborator, that makes things a little easierbecause you are getting that feedback. But if you
(49:35):
are writing alone, which most writers do, thenthat feedback loop isn't there at all except for
yourself. And prior to you putting it out into theworld where it can fall flat on its face, it's
good to have a little feedback ahead of time. Andyeah, that's really helpful to go into a workshop
or to give it to friends who may be willing toread something and give you their thoughts.
(49:59):
That's, I think, very, very valuable advice. AndI, you know, it's interesting in the, world of
motion pictures and tv, you're constantly gettingthat feedback, because you're always working in
collaboration with all kinds of people, whetherthey're designers or directors or producers or
whatever, marketing people, you're always gettingfeedback. But in the world of writing books, not
(50:21):
so much until you get toward the end of yourproject, unless you're in a workshop. So I think
that's very, very wise and valuable advice.
I also believe that we should do. People shouldnot be so snobby.
What does that mean? What do you mean?
I mean, like, you know, when people are, you know,they've written up a project, they're ready to
send it out, they feel it's really good, but theyonly want the big five, publishers or they want
(50:47):
only the best agent. And sometimes there's. There,you know, I could not get. I got an agent finally
for this. She went through 12 submissions andcould not sell it at all. I was ready to put it up
on the, you know, on the shelf and sort of, youknow, I'll just, I'll print it and the grandkids
(51:08):
can look at it someday. And then I took this. ThenI got this, this apprentice press. You know, it's
an unagented. No money, nothing. It's beenwonderful.
Well, that's. It's. The key is to get it out inthe world and let people have their. Their say
with it. and without that, it is on the shelf andnobody sees it except perhaps your children or
(51:31):
your relatives. yeah, I agree with that. Whatpeople don't realize is those big five publishers
or the big ten publishers, whatever they are,they're actually looking for people that are
already successful so that they can capitalize ontheir success. So you have to do something to
become successful in order to attract the bigpublishers. Unless you're somehow well connected.
(51:54):
otherwise, good luck. And so you went through anagent who tried 12 places. And I know of writers
who have gone out to 100 plus places.
Right. When I say 12, she did 12 levels ofsubmissions.
Ste (52:08):
I see. So it was 12 rounds.
It was a lot of rejections. and that's. And that'sthe other thing that has to happen with, you know,
especially with writing, you know, I'm sure withany creative. Right. It's. You gotta tolerate
rejection.
If you, if you aren't able to tolerate rejection,you are in big trouble right there. And it is hard
(52:29):
for novice writers, novice artists really, becausethey don't know how to deal with rejection because
here's my beautiful baby and you didn't like it.
Why didn't you like my beautiful baby? Well, guesswhat? Your beautiful baby may not be that
beautiful to that many people until you dosomething else or someone else says it's
beautiful. So, yeah, it's hard. It's just a hardbusiness. But you're correct. You have to stick to
(52:54):
it, you have to stay with it, or you, won'tsucceed. as they used to teach us at UCLA in,
screenwriting school, the only people who don'tsucceed are the people who give up. So there's a
lot of truth to that. Ginny DeLuca, this has beenan absolutely fabulous hour plus on story beat
today, and I can't thank you enough for your time,your energy, and for your wisdom in all this. This
(53:17):
is absolutely terrific stuff that you're doing,and I hope you do more.
Yeah. Great. Thank you so much.
And so we've come to the end of today's StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won't you please
take a moment to give us a comment, rating, orreview on whatever app or platform you're
listening to? Your support helps us bring moregreat Story Beat episodes to you. Story Beat is
(53:39):
available on all major podcast apps and platforms,including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify,
iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others. Until nexttime, I'm Steve Cuden and may all your stories
stories be unforgettable.
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