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Monday 12 April 2021

Sad Writing Stuff

 Fifitr - I'm sure you're weather will be fine in May, although I guess it depends where you are. I remember staying in Pickering in North Yorkshire one May and we had snow and sunburn in the same week! And I also count the layers.

The view from inside my car this morning - total frost over the windscreen.


Lots of Writing Stuff and talk about loss and miscarriage.

I practically never write about my own experience. The advice to writers is that you should write what you know. My first self published novel, The Forgotten Village, was a story set in a Post Office and shop (I've never worked in a post office and I last worked in a supermarket in 1986). The heroine was a neat freak (I am really, really, really not). And it's a village filled with vampires, werewolves and boggarts (no comment). It seems to have worked, though, and I got some good feedback. 

Another example is a short story where I wrote in the persona of a rejected mistress (here, if you're interested) and I was contacted by someone who had been in that position. I didn't like to judge, but I had never been anyone's mistress. I've never been with anyone who had another partner at the same time. It obviously resonated with her and rang true, and I felt for her pain, but I couldn't offer any insights. 

All this to say, just because it's in my fiction pages, doesn't mean that it's anything to do with me. It's quite likely that it's not. Writing anything about me is boring.

Today is an exception. Before I had bear, I had a miscarriage at 13 weeks. I know lots of women reading this will have experienced this or know people who did. I am sure that lots of people have had far more painful experiences. However I still feel a little lost. I went to the hospital and confirmed that I was losing my baby, but then I went home and that was it. I was sort of adrift. Apparently I should have been offered counselling and stuff, but it didn't happen. 

Today would have been my child's due date, and possibly their birthday. They would be fifteen. Normally I just keep it to myself, but I thought that as the flash fiction fell on this day, and the story was calling, I would share this piece of my experience. 

Sincere condolences and good wishes to all who have gone through this.

Hugs and good health to all.

4 comments:

  1. I read your short story earlier, and I wondered if you were writing from experience. I have no words, just a hug.

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  2. Sending hugs your way. I imagine it's a difficult day.

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  3. Just wanted to add my hugs to those offered by others. It is never too late to talk about personal feelings of loss. When we were going through the retained organs scandal in the NHS, many CHCs (Community Health Councils, the patients' voice in the NHS until 2003) had women in their eighties arriving in the office to beg for the opportunity to tell someone about their lost baby or miscarriage. They'd all been told to "get on with life" and forget their loss. My mother had two miscarriages, both boys, both after a month of bedrest. She noted the first in my baby book but it took her eighteen years to admit the second one had happened. There is a Miscarriage Association which offers support and Cruse is always at the end of a telephone or available for an online chat about any loss. Sometimes it is the small things which help - lighting a candle, dropping a note into running water or planting a commemorative tree. For others, it can be making some kind of meaning from a seemingly meaningless occasion. Thank you for sharing.

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  4. May 1991...at 32/33 weeks...a perfect little girl...it never leaves you. x

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