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Maybe most debut authors, especially those who write literary fiction, have manuscripts chock full of past pain, or have fictionalized their own life experience in their first books.
But I can only speak for myself.
My book is fiction, but the characters, most or all, are based on certain people from my life. Some are an amalgamation of several different people I've known.
But then, there's Steve and Carol Lancaster, my MC's mom and dad.
When my parents read my book, what will they have to say about the fictionalized versions of themselves?
The good news is that they have already read a section of my MS that started as a college short story. So, Dad knows he's a bit "aw, shucks" at times and Mom knows she is painted by the brush of her young daughter, who's POV we're in. Maybe a bit naïve, certainly a worrier, anxious to the core. Mom and Carol both had their own traumas, and unprocessed pain makes Carol who she is on the page. And that's okay. Carol's a great character, and my mom is a great mother. She certainly gave it her all. Maybe realizes in hindsight that we all should have been in therapy. But, it was the 1980s and 1990s and plus we had Jesus.
But it was kind of hard to accept love from God the Father when the rest of the men in your life were stinking it up so badly. Until Steve came along, but even then. I'd explain but, just read the book.
When I told my parents I'd finished my novel, my initial plan was to send them printed copies and ask them if there was anything in the book that was too painful for them, or that I needed to edit/ delete/ change/ leave out.
And then I decided that was idiotic. They didn't write a book. They didn't earn creative control. And the greatest thing happened - they agreed.
I'm forty years old. I'm a grown up. I'm an adult who wrote a freakin' fantastic work of fiction.
All they are is proud.
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