turning real people into characters

and writing my way into forgiveness

My mom was an active alcoholic from about the time I was 15-20, and in 2020, she relapsed after nine years of sobriety. I was 29 but I felt 17 again. The shock and dread of the relapse—how long will this last, how bad will this get, how can I possibly do this again—destabilized me. The Great Trauma of my life was resetting and I had to figure out how to live with it now, as an adult. But I didn’t know how to live with it as an adult. I only knew how to relive what I had already experienced.

So I started writing a novel about a high school girl in the early aughts who uses the world of emo music, online message boards, and parasocial relationships to escape the reality of her life with her alcoholic mom. Through writing, I made myself 17 again. My protagonist wasn’t me. She lied all the time and I never lie, but I had her living a double life on the message boards, going by a different name and spinning a story about how she’s having a spicy affair with her older boss bc I didn’t want the novel to be a trauma dump, I wanted it to be fun, too. And maybe I also needed to work in a storyline about fantasy because I still could not fully confront the storyline about alcoholism; even as the author, I needed something to distract me so I could avoid the real pain.

me at my protagonist’s age, 2009. taking a selfie on my white macbook, in my shared bedroom

I needed to write this novel because I needed to understand how my mom’s drinking made me feel. I needed to know how to live with her alcoholism. I needed to know how it impacted my life then in order to understand how it might impact my life now.

I spent those pandemic nights drafting. I wrote about what it felt like to get picked up from school by a drunk mom. To get in the car while my friends chatted with her and laughed at how kooky she was, completely oblivious because she was so, so good at hiding it. To sit in the passenger seat and grip on the door handle every time she took a left turn. What it felt like to go back to school the next day and pretend like nothing happened the night before—pretend I didn’t struggle to study for my test because I was in the laundry room looking for empty bottles, trying to prove that my mom actually was drunk even though she slurred that she wasn’t. I wrote about the anger I felt toward her. The way that sometimes I wanted to physically hurt her, I wanted to scream in her face and call her a bitch and shake her, shake the alcohol out of her system. I wrote about her apologies, the way I’d come home from school to a letter on my pillow saying she was sorry and she was really going to get better this time. The way I’d rip it up but hope it was true.

I wrote about not feeling seen, and through that, I saw myself. By creating a life for my character, I witnessed my own pain. I validated her suffering. I loved her.

But that wasn’t the greatest gift the novel gave me.

To create the kind of story I wanted, I needed to fully flesh out the character of the protagonist’s mom. She needed to be three-dimensional too. I needed to understand her. So I thought about why she drank. I thought about how bored she must have been, and maybe unfulfilled—a stay at home mom with just chores to do all day. I thought about what it would feel like to wake up with shame so often, almost daily. To know she was hurting the people she loved the most but to not know how to stop.

After that 2020 relapse, my mom drank on and off for the next few years. I told her at some point that I was writing this book and, to help with my research, she gave me one of her old journals from when I was in high school. It was a cheap spiral-bound notebook with Eeyore on it, a notebook for kids. She gave it to me in a yellow manila envelope that she’d written “I love you” on. Her journals were full of prayers and reflections. A pros and cons list of drinking, a printed out email with sweet words from my dad. Sometimes her handwriting was shaky or the entry was written upside down, like she opened the notebook the wrong way, and I could tell she was drunk while writing. But what struck me most was at the top of many of the entries, she’d write, “New sober date: xx/xx.” The entry would be about how she drank Fri, Sat, Sun. At the start of a new entry: “Day #3 sober.” Then the next entry, “New sober date: xx/xx.”

And I thought about what New Sober Dates meant to me back then—they meant failure. They meant she relapsed, so she failed; how infuriating, another new sober date. But looking at the journal with my novel’s mother character in mind I could see something different. How courageous. To mess up so often and to not give up. To always try to be better, even while feeling bone-deep shame.

By externalizing my mom’s traits in the form of building a character, I was able to, for the first time, truly see her battle with alcoholism as a source of strength. I was able to set my hurt aside and have compassion for her. I validated her suffering. I loved her.

My mom’s been sober for over a year now. She reads this newsletter (hi mom). I love her.

I wrote 63,000 words of the draft and had probably two chapters left before the manuscript would be complete. But every time I sat down to finish it, the project felt lifeless. Throughout the drafting process, I’d read more voraciously, I’d published short stories and worked with editors. I’d become a better writer. Those last few chapters should have been the best part of the project. But I didn’t need the novel anymore.

It had already answered my questions.

That project is now “in a drawer” as they say, but I am so grateful for it. I could probably learn more from it one day. But for now, I don’t need it to be published; it already changed my life.

---

if you liked this post it’s because I used my Guitar Center tuning fork to balance my throat chakra before writing it :) if you didn’t like it, i will only believe in science from now on.

Reading: I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel was cool as hell. Like her character wore a GANNI tracksuit and for some reason I was like, literary fiction characters can wear modern trendy clothes?? She also very casually wrote “fr fr” just like in the middle of her prose. IDK basically it was a beautiful reminder that we can do whatever we want when we write lol. Just started Detransition, Baby and I’m literally quitting writing bc it’s so good.

Writing: My word count is at 44,599 and I am currently writing THE juiciest part of the whole dang thing!! I’ve noticed myself reeeeeally slow down and stretch out the “Before The Juicy Thing” moments and I’ve wondered if it’s a correct instinct (I’m building the anticipation!) or if I am, as the author, subconsciously avoiding/procrastinating. My protagonist is about to actually do the thing she is afraid of, and maybe I, the writer, am a little afraid of it too. In order to confront it, I keep reminding myself that this is just my first draft. ngl I’m writing this draft very intentionally so I don’t think it’s insanely messy or anything, but I have to constantly remind myself that it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to get done.