Book Insights Private Matters - A Novel
Why I Wrote This Book
I didn’t set out to write a realistic women’s fiction novel. A Gotham Writers Workshop, lead by David Yoo, the author of Choke Artist started me down the path. He said, “Write about an encounter, that spins out of control and ends unexpectedly.”
An image of my mother flashed in my mind. Our mother daughter relationship has its kinks. An encounter with her might easily spin out of control. It doesn’t take much. As I wrote the fictitious opening to my story, I wondered, “what would make someone act like this?” It was that single thought that led me to create a whole scenario where the strange behavior could come to make sense. Reasoning that I would never understand my mother that way drove my fictional story to its conclusion. What I couldn’t get in real life (answers) just showed up on the page. In three days, I had a 50+ page short story.
David said, “It’s really good. You should expand it. Make it a book.” I didn’t think it was possible, but I wanted to try. From there, I asked myself, “what’s important to you?” A few topics came to mind. First, Women’s Rights and second Personal Freedom. I created a story line around these two concepts and did my best to stick to them.
As the book wrapped up, the old motivations vanished, and new ones took over. In life, there is no chance of a neat package of understanding. My mom is my mom. That’s all there is to it. Stories are different. Private Matters became its own separate thing.
For me, it’s a book about family. In it, the reader discovers how a woman faces family traumas and finds healing.
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