I'm always in awe of those writers who are able to write from some place or time that is totally foreign to the here and now -- those novelists who go back to a time they've never lived in --like World War 2 Nazi Germany or the Civil War Era. Without ever experienced it, they're able to transport us to a place and time that feels as real to us as yesterday in the grocery store might. Or what about science fiction authors who create, literally, an entirely new universe, or Dystopian YA writers who are able to make us believe that teenagers are killing other teenagers?
Nope, that's not me. For one thing, I absolutely hate research. For another, I'm not creative or imaginative enough to pull off anything like that. For me, I like to write what I know. That's not to say that my books are representative of my actual experiences -- I've gotten that question a lot, actually -- certainly not. I'm not my main characters, and most of what happens to them is not what has happened to me. But I inform their stories through my life, so, for instance in Child of Mine, when midwife Katie went through infertility, I was able to draw on my own infertility experience, and my love of all things pregnancy and birth. In The Opposite of Normal, I was not Hannah. I did not lose my mother when I was ten. I didn't have a Rabbi for a father. But I did go through adolescence, and I do question my religion, the idea of God, and I am Jewish, and those things helped me draw on what I needed to do for the book.
I just finished the first draft of my new novel, not yet titled. (Hopefully soon! I'm working on it. I happen to be terrible at titles.) But again, I've drawn on life experience to write it. People have been asking me what it's about and here I think I can finally talk about it, after being tight lipped for a long time. It's about a thirty- two year old autistic man who can't communicate. He can't talk, he can't use a device, like an ipad, to help him express himself, he doesn't use sign language. And he's one of the main characters.
Again I've gone to my own life to help inform my writing. Obviously, I am not autistic (nor do I have an autistic relative). But one of my very closest friends has a 22 year old autistic son, one who does not speak and has no means of communication. I've known this young man his entire life, and even before, when his mother announced her pregnancy at her husband's 30th birthday party 23 years ago. I remember her excitement over the pregnancy and the baby, and then the devastation as they discovered what was wrong with him when he was diagnosed at age 2.
As we get closer to publication, I'll let you know more about this novel, but for now, that's all I'm going to say as I wade through editing and revisions. Know that this book is very personal to me, and that I'm doing my best to capture the struggle of a family dealing with this condition. If you have a story in you, let me know. I'd love to hear what you would want to, or like to, write about.
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