At the annual astronaut Christmas party at the Hollett's, I get asked about how the book is going. I am writing about my astronaut sister, Janice, and these are people who knew her. As a writer, I don't think I'm alone in easily feeling defensive as a general state of being about how the book is coming. This comes from some expectation that most writers carry around that unless the book is done, it should be coming along better, I think. But also, even writers, who should know better, tend to think of a book in terms of word count. A lot of time the words that make up your writing draft are the tip of an iceberg that is below the surface. Much of the process of writing a book can be invisible. A lot of it never shows up on the written page that gets published (mostly for the better in terms of the story).
Here's the journey that my writer's process took me on this morning: I was looking up a recipe for a natural remedy for brain fog related to balancing potential candida growth following a course of antibiotics. I came across a website (with blog and book) published by a man, Vernon, who was reporting the disappearance of metastasized prostate cancer using molasses and baking soda for medicinal purposes to alkalinize the body. That led me to Dr. Huber's website on using sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, in alkalinizing the body to cure cancer. Hers was the clinic Janice chose for her final treatments, and I have a scene I need to write about meeting Dr. Huber that is part of Janice's story.
I hadn't approached Dr. Huber's information (and scene) from this angle before. Looking for an alternative treatment for something quite mundane, I was looking at Dr. Huber's website in the context of the alternative treatment community. Vernon, for example, in his blog talked about all the information he got from a cesium treatment group on yahoo. (Cesium is another fairly famous alkalinizing treatment for cancer used by a doctor in Italy.) Reading the principles for Dr. Huber's clinic reminded me of the contrast in the principles with western medicine, which reminded me of why naturopathy would be so attractive to Janice, who so much more strongly aligned with those principles, and who (in areas of greater uncertainty than logical knowledge) was a person who acted on her beliefs more than most of us can even imagine doing.
Janice was more aware of herself and knew herself more than anyone else I have ever known. You can imagine how this might have happened as she passed by her classmates in school starting in first grade, was raised in a Unitarian Universalist family known for its independent and strong-headed thinking (particularly among the women), and received acknowledgement and accolades for breaking the mold.
So working with this information, I developed some text on the two different perspectives: western medicine and the alternative path and the different principles of each. I wrote a section for the book about the naturopathic path called, "A Different Path." At the end of the day today, that has solidified in my mind as the thread of the book covering Janice's "different path" with cancer. There are two different logics involved when traveling a conventional versus a naturopathic healing path, different ways of looking at the world, different lexicons, different languaging about cancer. They both have their validity. I hope to show that.
There were two other pieces that, in combination with the Internet search this morning, triggered this thinking. At the second astronaut party after the first, I was introduced to an astronaut who told me that his wife had had DCIS (interductal carcinoma) at the same time as Janice's cancer and they did their best to lay out the case for doing "conventional" (radiation and chemotherapy) treatment for Janice. "But it was clear her mind was made up." Another exasperated expression of "She had to do it her own way." With the implied, "And look where her stubbornness got her." It was this--what people would do with her decision--that Janice feared most according to the astronaut she consulted most throughout her cancer process. I have felt a dangerously compelling need to justify her decision.
The other trigger was a writing prompt in my Masters of Nonfiction course I'm taking as part of a master's program (advanced writing in nonfiction) at Johns Hopkins University. The prompt: to write a couple paragraphs using the narrative techniques we had been studying that included a mystery, a symbol, something that could mean different things to different people, and something I didn't understand.
Interesting challenge. Which perfectly fit what I was up against in writing the scene about the last Christmas with Janice. The prompt gave me an idea for a way to approach to the scene. I ended up conveying the movement of the scene like two railroad paths colliding: Janice's journey on an alternative healing path colliding with Mom and Dad having to let go of trying to save her. "A Different Path" happens to fit neatly into that construct. Something I didn't think about until after I had written it, but my subconscious may have known all along.
These moments of pulling the pieces together and then having a revelation about their meaning: the scene (which I was a part of) had a deeper meaning: watching my parents let go of my sister. When I realized the deeper meaning, I sat back in shock, and the tears came again, as they often do with this book project. But it is why I write: I learn and grow from the insights, being astonished at the knowledge that is right there in front of me if I am present. Being there for that moment requires doing the work of seeking information, collecting it, putting it in place (generative writing), working with its meaning (rewriting), and then realizing the underlying meaning and shaping the work to bring that out (for the audience) and enhance it so the writing becomes about that and not the thing I thought I was writing about. It requires time and patience. And a certain amount of faith that deeper insight will come and will result in better writing, that the writing hasn't "cured" enough yet.
That's the magic, the invisible magic, that it's hard to talk to engineers about, that's not straightforward, that doesn't result in word counts (not directly), that is what deepens the writing so it becomes an experience for the reader that may deepen the meanings of life for them as it does for me.
The world in which this happens, that I work in, is quiet and solitary and private. You can't see me working on it in my office because no one else is permitted in to distract me. I work alone and in silence when I'm at my best. That is a fairly unique career. It is difficult to describe and only visible by the fruits of my labors. I tend to think in terms of that visible part when I report on how "the book" is going. But that's not the truth. The vast part of how the book is going is the journey I am on before I ever get to the final words.