Wiseblood Books

Review of "Jennifer the Damned", by Karen Ullo

2/22/2018

Carolyn J. Watson

I rode the Metaphysical Seesaw at the Fair of the Senses. Actually, I read Karen Ullo's Jennifer the Damned, which oscillates between the ordinary world of a teenaged girl and a world of Gothic bloodlust and murder. The plot swoops through wrenching events; the writing bursts with sensory-surround. Swinging dizzily from the quotidian to the fantastical, I flailed to make connections and find solid footing, until I was tumbled out at last into a place of resolution. On second reading I begin to see, within the chaotic seesawing world, a pattern of desire, belief, choice and consequences, and grace.

Vampire lore, and horror in general, are territories of a foreign country I have no desire to visit. But Ullo folds the horrors forthrightly into her story and integrates the consequences of horrific acts into the mainstream of the narrative––no excuses, no evasions, no pleading of special circumstances. Life is deeply wounded and forever changed by criminal actions, but it does not grind to a halt, and the actions do not completely define the criminal. The joint between the heinous and the mundane is greased by humor that acknowledges the absurdities of Jennifer's situation. The grit of self-pity, however, is almost entirely absent from her character.

In a dream, Jennifer Carshaw sees her soul dangling just out of reach. Vampires, Jennifer believes, do not have souls. But if this metaphysical proposition is a lie, then redemption is possible, even for a vampire. And bloodlust is not a fate but a temptation, very powerful but not irresistible. This revelation would open up a new possibility for the vampire, no longer doomed either to death by a stake through the heart or to an existence of hot, fatal impulse and endless, lonely exclusion. The finale might open into transformation of the vampire and of integration––or re-integration––into the human family. But if the vampire has agency, she must eventually assume responsibility for her blood murders, and the hour of reckoning looms along with the possibility of a new life of freedom. The reader is left to ponder at what point and to what degree someone traveling the trajectory from soul-enslaving lies to liberating truth is responsible for actions that issue from, and accompany, the former.

Jennifer was not born a vampire; she was ripped from her mother's womb just before birth by the murderous vampire Helen, who takes and raises her after transforming her into a vampire-to-be. Despite this Ur-tragedy, Jennifer is an attractive character––perceptive, compassionate, equipped with a quirky, dry sense of self-assessing humor. The story opens on her 16th birthday, a fateful day when the long-incubating vampiric proclivities burst forth even as she tries to continue her life as a brainy teenager navigating a variety of relationships (including a first-ever romance) with her clueless classmates. Indispensible to Jennifer's existence––and indeed, to her salvation––is the unkillable love of a small group of religious sisters, in whose convent in Baton Rouge she lives. Helen left Jennifer with the sisters in the mistaken belief that exposure to their teaching about the love of God for humanity would throw into relief the unequivocal exclusion of the vampire from the community of human and divine love. Eventually, the temporary sensory euphoria and satiation of drinking victims' blood proves to be a tantalizing, empty promise. A pivotal moment occurs when Jennifer has a powerful realization of divine love and of the possibility of a new life, extended to her for the taking. Out of pride, she refuses the offer and commits a truly heinous act.

Four years later she is in Los Angeles, with a new identity, working as a make-up artist by day and killing by night when the need becomes urgent. Here she is presented with two offers of love: One is a self-sacrificing love resonant with redemptive possibilities but requiring painful truth; the other is a less demanding love based on shared, mutual emptiness.

Jennifer's choices become clear, but other things are not so clear. The motivation for Helen's desire to experience motherhood remains murky. How Jennifer passed through childhood in the company of her redoubtable pseudo-mother without incurring debilitating trauma is also unclear. The psychological boundary between the persona of the vampire and that of the bright young woman is not quite convincing: She certainly feels guilt and regret but she is not crippled by denial and repression. There are painful problems but no intractable neuroses in the psyche of the blighted Jennifer. The faithful devotion and sexual self-control of her movie-star boyfriend, formerly a philanderer, is not entirely believable. Characteristics traditionally associated with vampires seem to be sorted for the convenience of the narrator: no disfiguring fangs, pointed ears, or empty mirrors, which would be too difficult to integrate into a story featuring much close social interaction. Aversion to sunlight is neutralized by sunscreen. But red lips, radiantly seductive appeal, super strength, and speed are retained and are used to good effect by the author. In the first half of the book the narrative voice seems a little too mature for the sixteen-year-old to whom it belongs. This problem is resolved in the second half, when Jennifer, working in Hollywood, is twenty. Jennifer retains her virginity in Babylon, a virginity entirely suited to her character and in the protection of which she can draw on the super-strength of a vampire, though the feat is managed almost too easily for someone so alone and so attractive. Here again the story's limits are served: What would happen downstream from sexual love with a vampire? What monstrous offspring?

Much attention is rightly given to description of Jennifer's struggle with the urge to control blood-lust, which, when denied, grows over time into a raging torment. For this blood-lust the chief stimulus and organ of sensation is the olfactory; Ullo's descriptions of the lovely, tantalizing perfume of life-in-the-blood, a bouquet of aromas unique to each individual and bearing the imprint of his or her personhood and deeds, is a striking manifestation of the infinitely precious and unique beauty of each human soul (and beyond that, of the beauty of the Eucharist). The logistical difficulties inherent in concealing an alter identity are also well articulated.

The style of writing suits the story. Whimsical, somewhat disjointed syntax correlates to the vampire's disconnects from the world. Adjectives, adverbs and phrases which float from one context into another, create a hovering veil of associations, not quite in contact with the nouns and verbs which they are called into existence to serve, and are analogs of the girl who hovers between worlds. Description and narrative are, in places, not stream-of-consciousness, but stream-of-sensation in character. This mode of writing serves to lift the reader over the abyss between vampire and human teenager.

Ullo's story is not without difficulties, most of which are traceable to the uncertain metaphysical boundary between the human and the vampire. However, the story is boldly (not brutally) told, the main character is well worth knowing, and the writing is fragrant and creative. A luminous, common-sensical, and life-affirming Catholicism is a welcome inversion of a dark, superstitious Catholic quicksand caricatured in Gothic fiction.

Carolyn Watson is a medievalist by training and she has published one book and several articles on topics ranging from 4th-century ivories to 14th-century manuscripts. She is also interested in art theory, especially ideas of beauty and creativity. She teaches at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.

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Writing Through The Curves: Stay Connected

11/2/2017

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by Angela Cybulski

Tip #3: Stay Connected

When I was a teenager, I attended a (then) California Angels game and was both excited and surprised to see All-Star Angels catcher and one of my favorite players, Brian Downing, sitting not 20 feet away from us in a reserved section. His leg was encased in a heavy cast and rested high on the bleacher seat in front of him. He sat there, by himself, for the entire game cheering on his team. I never forgot this – Downing couldn’t play, and would be unable to for some time, but he showed up. He can't know the example he set for me in that simple act.

For a baseball player, getting placed on the DL (disabled list) for an injury is a serious curveball that literally upsets his entire game. The player has been operating on a set routine day in and day out, practicing his skills and working in community with the rest of the team to perfect his game. His success depends upon his active participation in the routine and consistent practice. But an injury sets his whole routine off balance, effectively severing it along with the player's accustomed role in the team community. A new routine is necessary to deal with the curve – often slow recovery from the injury and then physical therapy before a gradual return to practice, with the hope of eventually returning to the original routine and communal role. In Downing’s case, his recovery from that injury brought with it an additional curveball: he was unable to return to his position as catcher – instead, he needed to work and train up to lead the outfield in the starting lineup. Through these life-altering, game-changing curves, Downing and other injured players stay connected -- they make the effort required to participate in the team community to the extent they are able and to the best of their ability, and even move into all new territory, if that is what is required.

When the curves come in fast and hard for writers and other artists, they can leave us feeling disoriented and out of the loop, maybe even completely out of commission. This can be especially hard and discouraging, especially if you were writing regularly and now are finding it extremely difficult or even impossible to sustain the kind of work or level of commitment you have been used to demonstrating. As you work to weather the curves and figure out how to deal with them, it is important to stay connected to both the craft and practice of writing, as well as to the larger community of writers.

One way to keep your hand in the game while you manage the curveballs is to read a book on writing that speaks to where you’re at now, or maybe re-read an old favorite. Perhaps there you’ll find an idea that speaks to you in your current situation, which helps you make better sense of the thing you are struggling with. Or maybe the book serves as inspiration to continue on at all, even in the smallest, most seemingly insignificant way. Choose carefully, however; not all books on the craft of writing are appropriate sources of inspiration and encouragement if you are struggling with life-changing issues. You don’t want a book that discourages you by setting up impossible expectations which you can’t hope to achieve right now. Rather, you need ideas and options, encouragement and support. I mentioned one of my favorite books in my first post to this series, Pen On Fire, by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. One other book that I find inspiring and nurturing is If You Want To Write, by Brenda Ueland. Bird by bird by Anne Lamott is also a favorite. These books are humorous and encouraging, fully aware of the curveballs LIFE can let fly at you, and they offer practical inspiration and workable ideas to help keep you writing and staying connected when things get really hard. Or perhaps you might consider keeping an actual record of an authentic writing life close at hand to help give you courage and support when things seem particularly difficult to navigate in your own writing life. I love The Habit of Being, by Flannery O’Connor and A Writer’s Diary, by Virginia Woolf. Both writers recount, through letters and personal diaries, the highs and lows, joys and sufferings of daily life and how they do – or do not – write through it and what helps them stay connected and inspired through it all. I find these two books are especially good when dealing with my own suffering, whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. They demonstrate that art can survive, and even be born through, suffering, and illustrate positive and negative ways of dealing with both.

Another way to stay connected is through craft publications like Poets & Writers and The Writer. These magazines provide articles about what a real writing life looks like and offer many different ways of approaching your craft and working with and through life-changing situations. For example, one article in Poets & Writers dealt with a writing couple whose child has severe special needs and examined the ways they both manage to stay connected to their craft, while also managing the challenges their child’s disability presents and making their marriage a priority. Other articles have dealt with figuring out how to write while dealing with the death of a family member, experiencing divorce, or navigating serious illness. Staying connected to the larger writing community through articles like these have provided invaluable encouragement to me since some of my curveballs have recently made it impossible for me to write consistently. Reading craft publications also helps to keep your project front and center, even when you can’t get to it right then, by providing ample inspiration and food for thought during those times when you can’t practice.

If you are able to get out -- which might do you good -- perhaps you can find time to attend a writing event or conference in your area. Professionals in all fields take time for development, networking, and meaningful conversation with colleagues. Poets & Writers has an app you can download on your phone. Based on your location, the app provides current listings of readings, book-signings, author events and writing-related everything that might be offered in your area. Bookstores and libraries are also great resources for discovering local literary events; often they host writers and workshops, even book fairs and writing conferences. Local newspapers and community magazines may also have listings for literary events. I recently attended a Q&A session with a literary agent through a local writer’s salon, which was both informative and relaxing. It also provided a great opportunity to network and socialize with other writers, and was a much-needed break from the issues I am juggling at home.

If your curveballs prevent you from leaving the house or committing much time to extra-curricular events, consider staying connected through some of the great places for writers on the web. Visit LitHub, The Writing Café, The Paris Review, and Aerogramme Writers Studio. Podcasts on writing are a wonderful way to stay connected. Download the Stitcher app or use iTunes and look for Writers on Writing, Between the Covers, The NY Times Book Review, Ampersand, Bookworm, and The Guardian Books Podcast are some of my favorites -- I can listen while I'm folding laundry, cleaning the house, making dinner, or running errands in the car. I love listening to these interview shows with authors and agents, discussing every aspect of living a literary life. They provide great inspiration and encouragement, especially when you hear how other writers have worked through the curveballs in their own lives.

Staying connected to the larger writing community via these various avenues reminds me that I am not alone in my struggles to sustain an authentic writing life even amidst some pretty brutal curveballs. These resources remind me that I can still find a way to work on my art in a manner that works for the way my life is NOW, that I need to stay hopeful, and that I need to persevere to whatever extent I am able. Staying connected ultimately means showing up, even if I can't play, and showing that I am part of the team, part of the community. This is the life-lesson I learned by the example set for me by that beloved all-star who, though he wasn’t able to play down on the field, still showed up for the game, no less committed. In his quiet example, Brian Downing left a legacy he isn’t even aware of. And after all these years, I’m still grateful for the gift of his example.

This is part three of a six-part series. You can find previous entries here:

Writing Through the Curves: Series Opener
Tip #1: Let go of the pressure
Tip #2: Find a place apart

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The Spiritual Purpose of Horror Stories: Part 2 of 2

10/25/2017

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by Karen Ullo

Read Part 1 here

Horror stories are inherently metaphorical, externalizing inward truths, and as such they also function very readily as fables or parables. Mary Shelley hit us over the head with this fact in Frankenstein:

“I am by no means indifferent to the manner in which whatever moral tendencies exist in the sentiments of the characters shall affect the reader… [especially] the exhibition of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue.” — Mary Shelley, Preface to Frankenstein

Then, just in case you missed that she told you she’s writing a parable:

“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be his world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.” ― Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein to Robert Walton)

And then, Shelley ups the ante:

“Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with, and acquire knowledge from, beings of a superior nature: but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me.” – Frankenstein (spoken by the monster)

Mary Shelley did everything but tattoo the words “spiritual metaphor” on the monster’s head. Yet many critics still insist on reading Frankenstein as anything and everything but a spiritual story. How could Mary Shelley, daughter of an outspoken atheist who ran away with a married man who was also an outspoken atheist, a woman who bore a child out of wedlock before her eventual marriage, who lived anything but a model Christian life, write a story rooted in Christian symbolism about a struggle of the soul against virtue? Surely, she couldn’t have really meant it?

Jesus himself answered that question: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." (Mark 2:17)

“I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on,” says the monster. Frankenstein is a story of and for the sick of soul.

But even if all genuine horror stories grapple with the reality of sin, there does seem to be a general distinction between stories written by believers and those written by people who have fallen away from belief. Believers tend to infuse one crucial element that is often missing from stories told by unbelievers. That element is, simply, hope.

Victor Frankenstein and his monster end their story in a war of mutual destruction.

Quasimodo, the half-man, seeks and seems to find his wholeness in the Church, only to have his sanctuary destroyed by the betrayal of his father-priest, Claude Frollo.

Contrast such stories against A Christmas Carol. G. K. Chesterton wrote that “the tone of Dickens towards religion, though like that of most of his contemporaries, philosophically disturbed and rather historically ignorant, had an element that was very characteristic of himself. He had all the prejudices of his time. He had, for instance, that dislike of defined dogmas, which really means a preference for unexamined dogmas.” Dickens was, nevertheless, a Christian believer, who felt it necessary to write a simplified version of the Gospels for his children. From even this inexact sort of faith, we get the rejection of the Ghost of Christmas Future’s bleak prophecy and the salvation of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Then look at Dracula, written by a member of the Church of Ireland. Dracula is a bit of a theological mess, subject to charges of Manichaeism, and—as every good Catholic knows—Van Helsing would never have been granted a dispensation to use the consecrated Host as a putty for sealing vampiric tombs. But Dracula remains unabashedly a story not only about good defeating evil, but about loving the sinner in order to save him from his sin. As the final battle approaches, Mina Harker convinces the band of vampire hunters that they must not kill Dracula out of hate, but out of love.

“I know that you must fight–that you must destroy… but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he too is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality.” – Dracula (Mina Harker to her friends)

Then, when the deed is accomplished:

“I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there…. The sun was now right down upon the mountain-top, and the red gleams fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse the men sank on their knees, and a deep and earnest ‘Amen’ broke from all…” – Dracula (Mina Harker narrating the death of Dracula)

The death of Dracula is not merely the end of his reign of terror; it is his redemption.

This is the spiritual foundation of horror stories built for us by some of the greatest writers of the nineteenth century. However, this tradition was all but obliterated in the twentieth, when Good and Evil fell so far out of fashion in literary circles that horror—which is built upon the premise that these two words have solid, legitimate meaning—never stood a chance. Even believers shied away from horror, turned off by the slate of senseless bloodshed that stepped in to fill the abandoned literary niche. The Exorcist seems to have marked the genre’s last great spiritual hurrah, an entertaining book that secularists can enjoy because they have the luxury of believing that demons are fictional. However, despite the book’s flaws, Catholics must acknowledge that its underlying premise—the existence of a spiritual sickness that cannot be cured by medicine or psychology, whose only remedy is found in the Church—is the very real truth of our own lives.

If we have the courage to let them, horror stories can force us to face the most difficult truths of our human existence: that we are fallen, we are sinners, we are all plagued by demons real or metaphorical, and we, by ourselves, are powerless to chase them out. But Christians are specially positioned to know how and through Whom the battle against the monsters can be won. The truth of evil is accessible to all, inherent in our fallen nature; the truth of Jesus’ victory over sin and death belongs to Christians alone. Horror is a genre that incarnates sin; in the hands of a skillful Christian writer, it can also dramatize how sin is conquered by Incarnate Love. Horror is a genre custom-made to the be the playground of Christian storytellers, and it is long past time we set our squeamishness aside to embrace its spiritual possibilities. Jennifer the Damned represents my own humble entrée into reviving the genre, but I sincerely hope it will be only a footnote to the great twenty-first century blossoming of Catholic Christian horror.

Karen Ullo is the author of two novels, Jennifer the Damned (Wiseblood Books) and Cinder Allia, as well as the managing editor of Dappled Things, a quarterly journal of Catholic art and literature. She holds an MFA in screenwriting from the University of Southern California. You can find her on the web at karenullo.com.

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The Spiritual Purpose of Horror Stories: Part 1 of 2

10/20/2017

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by Karen Ullo

“And yet from this – from evil – will come good…. Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness. And perhaps even Satan – Satan, in spite of himself – somehow serves to work out the will of God.” – William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist

In all the ink that has been spilled about the twentieth century heyday of Catholic fiction— that Golden Age of Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, J.R.R. Tolkien, Evelyn Waugh, et. al.--only rarely do we hear mention of William Peter Blatty. Yet Blatty was a practicing Catholic, and he is certainly a major twentieth century author whose work contains an explicit presentation of Catholic truths. The plot of The Exorcist hinges on the Church and its representative priests being the only source of Good capable of defeating True Evil. Blatty even called it “an apostolic work, to help people in their faith.” So where, in all our recent literary pining, is the nostalgia for The Exorcist?

The Exorcist is not a perfect book. Personally, I find parts of it gratuitous, and I wish Blatty had been clearer in the end: that he had spelled it out in no uncertain terms that it is Christ working through Fr. Karras who conquers the demon, not the erstwhile exorcist himself. It is legitimate to argue the merits of Blatty’s Hollywood-infused style of storytelling versus the more traditional literary styles of the other authors I mentioned, though I, as a trained screenwriter, have to side with Blatty. It’s fair to claim that his portrayal of demonic possession isn’t accurate, though I prefer to give fiction writers license to err on the side of drama. However, I suspect there is really only one reason why Catholic literary circles so often omit The Exorcist from the “canon” of twentieth century Catholic literature.

It’s because it scares the bejesus out of us.

Horror is the most maligned, most marginalized of all literary genres, the one least likely to be regarded as “serious” literature. After all, it usually traffics in ghosts, werewolves, vampires, witches, zombies, and other such fictional creatures, so why should the serious mind waste time pondering them? From a Catholic perspective, these are also creatures whose existence in the real world would run contrary to Church teaching. Add to this the fact that the twentieth century offered a never-ending buffet of mindless, soulless horror stories, slasher films and novels that glorified bloodlust, which rarely bothered to contribute anything of moral or literary worth to our society. Blatty and a few others, such as Dean Koontz and Tim Powers, made for rare exceptions. The easiest thing for a Catholic or other Christian to do was to brush all horror aside, revile it, and be done with the whole genre. However, in doing so, we misunderstood the true purpose of literary monsters and the genuinely spiritual roots of the horror genre.

Let’s go back another hundred years. The nineteenth century produced a veritable banquet of literary horror, stories that took such deep root in the Western imagination that we now remake and reimagine them endlessly, until even their very names have come to seem like clichés. Frankenstein. Dracula. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Yet the age of Gothic horror was not one of ludicrous caricatures, but one that gave us enduring works about spiritual crisis from some of the era’s greatest authors. It’s difficult to relegate Victor Hugo to the literary sidelines, yet it was a horror novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, that first vaulted him to literary fame. A Christmas Carol may not be Charles Dickens’s finest masterpiece, but it is certainly one of his most popular works—and what is it to be visited by four ghosts in one night but horror?

The purpose of a horror story is to personify sin, often but not always in a supernatural form. Such stories allow us to take the part of ourselves that is the ugliest, the most malignant, the most intransigent and terrifying—the part that is already dead—and give it a shape with which we can grapple. The literary monster comes in varying degrees of embodied-ness and varying degrees of evil, ranging from Quasimodo, malformed but still capable of goodness, to the pure evil of Blatty’s demon. But the literary monster is always an outward projection of some part of the brokenness within our human souls. This remains true whether or not the author is a believer; it requires no religious conviction to be disgusted by the hideous deeds of which mankind, and one’s own self, are capable.

It is the nature of the literary monster to represent sin, the fallen state of man, which is a spiritual truth; therefore, it is the nature of horror stories to be vehicles for portraying spiritual struggle. It is not an accident that the nineteenth century spawned the greatest horror stories ever told. It was a century of great spiritual upheaval, one that questioned and corroded the traditions of Christianity, when adherents of Science began to position themselves as enemies of Faith. Yet the nineteenth century did not achieve the moral relativism of the twentieth. The ultimate source of morality had been called into question, but Good and Evil were still real things that one could speak of without being mocked. Even a serial philanderer and Catholic apostate like Victor Hugo still considered that there was such a thing as Good, and he spent his life working to reform his troubled nation.

In such a climate, it is almost inevitable that horror stories would flourish.

Read Part 2 here.

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Writing Through The Curves: Find a Place Apart

10/16/2017

6 Comments

by Angela Cybulski

JACKIE ROBINSON -- PHOTO CREDIT: HARRY WARNECKE/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tip #2: Find a place apart.

In the film 42, rookie Jack Robinson has a major curveball to deal: his race. As the only black man in an all-white ball club in an all-white league at the height of the racial segregation issues that plagued America through the better part of the 20th century, Robinson simply cannot live where the other players live, at least initially. In a poignant scene near the beginning of the film, Robinson and his wife are taken to a place apart, a “safe” place where they can reside while he starts playing on the farm team and which enables Robinson to keep his focus on the game and on his family, rather than on the major disruptions and challenges caused by his race. This evasive action in light of the curve may not be right, but it is necessary, both for Jack’s safety and for the sustained practice of his craft.

Virginia Woolf at Monk's House. Photo credit: unknown.

When curveballs create an imbalance in our own creative lives, sometimes the best way to deal with them is to go somewhere else. This doesn’t mean ignoring them – just like Robinson, we still have to deal with them. However, in order to strategize the curves while continuing to practice our craft, sometimes it’s necessary to gain an objective distance. Finding a place apart allows us to acknowledge simply that the curveball exists and we realize that there may be no right way to deal with it head on right now. If Jackie had forced himself to attack the curveball his race presented to him, his family, and his ball club, he not only would have compromised all of those relationships, but he would also have compromised his ability to practice his craft in any meaningful way. Dealing with the ferocity of the curveball would have consumed him.

Often in our lives a similar thing occurs: sometimes it becomes impossible to continue writing in the place you’re used to for any number of reasons. Going someplace else doesn’t mean you can’t ever come back to where you were. It simply means that the place you had before no longer serves, no longer functions for you, the way it did before you began struggling with the curveballs.

What kind of space a writer needs and even if the writer needs a place apart depends upon a lot of factors. For myself, I need complete quiet to think, especially when I need to get into the fantasy world of the novel I’m writing. I do not thrive on noise and busy-ness, though I know some people who do. My temperament is such that I simply shut down after too much stimulation. I need time and stillness to access and process my ideas, while other writers may be able to tune out external stimuli to a greater degree.

I’ve had need to find a place apart on several occasions. One time a few years ago, the chaos of indefinite construction projects, the ensuing drastic schedule changes and nearly constant interruptions by the work crew engulfed both my writing place and time and made quiet in my home next to unknown – the conditions under which I wrote previously simply no longer existed. During that time, I was fortunate to rent a small studio space with a writer friend which allowed me to temporarily escape the chaos at home and keep writing. Eventually my schedule and life reverted will revert back to what it was and my space and time became more my own again. But for awhile at least I needed to find a place apart that would allow me to keep my head and hand in the game of writing.

More recently, emotional challenges at home have made it difficult to enter into the mental and emotional place I need to be in to write. So, when my friend invited me again to share studio space for a few months I accepted. This new space is a true blessing, a quiet room of my own where I can escape the chaos for hours at a time, a place where I can write, think, read, and recharge. Here I am given the concentrated quiet I need to enter deeply into the made up world of my novel and live there awhile. It is a place where I can breathe and think clearly and process everything that I am struggling to deal with. My place apart helps me to both work and strategize my troubles with the curveballs, enabling me to better see my way clear to dealing with them. And that’s what a place apart should do for you.

I will eventually lose this studio space and I was aware of that when I agreed to share it. That’s the thing about finding a place apart – it is for a time. Even though it will be difficult to give up the space, it will have served its purpose. The most important lesson having a room of my own has taught me is learning to commit to making the time to going there and to doing the work. It’s about committing to nurturing and practicing the work that matters. Being in a place apart has taught me to see possibility where none seemed to exist before. I’ve learned to take the initiative, find a space, and continue on with the work, in spite of the curves.

In an inspiring interview on the radio show Writers on Writing, memoirist Allison Singh Gee recounts how she composed her book, Where the Peacocks Sing: A Palace, A Prince, and the Search For Home, at a table at work on her lunch breaks. As a busy working mother with a three-year-old at home, Singh Gee said she just couldn’t find a way or a place to write except to do it somewhere else. Finding a place didn’t mean she was abandoning her child and her home. It simply meant that in order to practice her craft and do the work of being a writer she needed to find a place elsewhere – home was not conducive to doing the work she needed to do. Finding a place apart enabled Singh Gee to deal with the curveballs and complete her book.

Your place apart could be anywhere – a library, a café, a park, even your car. Perhaps it could be a real room of your own, like my situation. If you simply cannot physically LEAVE, then maybe try working outside or in another room in your home. One woman writer I know shuts herself up in the bathroom just to have some peace and quiet. Doors work wonders – don’t be afraid to close a door, position a screen, hang a drapery to block out the noise or chaos or whatever is preventing you from focusing on your writing project.

If you simply can’t grow where you’re planted remember Jackie Robinson: don’t beat your head against the wall trying to force the situation to conform to your expectations of what needs to happen or hold so tightly to your old way of doing things that you fail to think creatively about other possibilities (see Tip #1). Find another place to put down roots, even if only temporarily. Doing so can make the difference between writing and not writing. Finding a place apart can make it possible for you to stay in the game, just like Jackie.

Where do you write? How do you create a place apart to ensure your creative life is able to weather the curves?

This is part two of a six part series. You can find the others here: Series Opener, Tip #1

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Review of "Jennifer the Damned", by Karen Ullo

Carolyn J. Watson​

Writing Through The Curves: Stay Connected

by Angela Cybulski

The Spiritual Purpose of Horror Stories: Part 2 of 2

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Carolyn J. Watson