Bill Konigsberg's Blog, page 5

Let Me Help You Write a Novel!

Do you have a Young Adult novel that you’re dying to write?

I can help you with that!

So can instructors Tom Leveen, Barry Lyga, Amy Nichols, and Beth Staples.

So can mentors Elana K. Arnold, Jim Blasingame, Martha Brockenbrough, Sharon Flake, Karen Harrington, Varian Johnson, Tom Leveen, Kimberley Griffiths Little, Barry Lyga, Lish McBride, Amy Nichols, and Jean Rabe.

I’m talking about Your Novel Year, the online certificate program for those wishing to write a young adult novel at The Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. In case you were wondering how you can work one-on-one with me (or any of these other authors), this is your answer. I coordinate the program, created much of the curriculum, and teach several of the classes.

Check out this great article in the Phoenix New Times about us. It talks about us as one of the best-kept-secret resources out there for aspiring writers, and while I know I’m biased, I must agree! How else can you work with award-winning, best-selling authors? Your options, if you wish to learn more about craft and get hands-on help, seem to be a handful of MFA programs that focus on YA lit, and us. Nothing against those programs, which sound awesome. This is just an alternative if you want to study for a year instead of two or three.

If you’re interested, get moving! Applications are due in less than a month (Oct. 31). We are a competitive program, taking the students we feel:

Show the most promise based on a writing sample of 20-25 pages.
Seem the most teachable based on a personal essay.

Feel free to email me at bkonigsberg@gmail.com if you want to talk more about the program or if you have any questions. If you’re serious about learning, I promise you this will be a life-changing experience!

Me and the FacePlace – A divorce?

 

It was two years ago at my 25th high school reunion. A woman who was never exactly a friend came up to me and said, “Oh my God, Billy, I see you on Facebook and you’re doing so well in life! That’s amazing, because, back then, well… ” She then paused and rolled her eyes in a way that connoted, ‘you were a big-time mess.’

I got a big laugh out of that, because it seemed like the kind of thing you don’t say to someone at a 25th high school reunion, true or not. And truthfully I don’t live outside my own experience, so I don’t know if it was warranted. I was, let’s say, “dramatic” in high school. Lots of crises, rampant highs and lows, and always this annoying need to share my feelings with the world. Call it a tragic flaw, or maybe call it the reason I am a successful writer. I don’t know.

I’m sure if you asked many people from my high school class, they may have found my histrionics maddening, my militant political stances cringe-worthy. And probably just as many thought I was just fine, or even better than fine. That’s kind of the way it works, and when you have a big personality and live as loud as I always have, people are bound to have opinions about you.

I bring this up because recently, more and more, I’ve been feeling like I’m back in high school. It’s Facebook and social media in general. I’ve been on for more than 8 years, so none of this is new. But I’ve been feeling it more and more recently.

If you’ve read Openly Straight, you know about the camera. That camera that is trained on us all the time, how we (some of us, anyway) seem to monitor our own behavior and focus on how we think others might see us. And of course, as Rafe finds out in that novel, the secret is that no one is really thinking about us; they are, like us, thinking about themselves, and how people are viewing them.

Back in high school, that camera was on me 24/7. Part of that was being a teenager. Another part, I think, was being gay. When you are in the process of coming out, it’s almost impossible not to think about what others are seeing. For me it was questions like, “Am I masculine enough?” “Do I have value as a human being?”

I’m older now, and these questions are mostly far in my rear-view mirror. But what I’m finding recently, more and more, is that the camera is creeping in, thanks to social media.

I don’t think we were meant to live our lives under the gaze of 1,951 people (minus those who don’t follow me, etc.). I don’t believe it’s normal to get to the point that when something happens in my life, I think, “what will I post on Facebook about this?” “How many people will like what I write?” “Is my comment going to piss anyone off?”

This is not normal human behavior. Or if it is, I guess I think it shouldn’t be.

I went on vacation for two weeks, and I took a break from Facebook. I gotta say, I loved it. It was delightful not thinking about that virtual camera. I enjoyed interacting only with those around me rather than with whoever might come across what I wrote and enjoy it, or hate it, or whatever.

I think I need to mostly continue things that way. Not post my every thought on social media as I’ve been doing for 8 years. In some ways, I will miss it. The semi-connection with others. The knowledge that someone from college who I haven’t seen in years likes my picture. I won’t miss the daily deluge of anger, fear, etc., that I was sometimes part of (see above).

Besides. I think it may be in my best interest as a writer and a person to NOT overshare on social media, as I have for lo these last 8 years. Even a lovable person (and to some I seem to be that) can suffer from overexposure. And are a writer’s words diminished if they are constantly being “published” every day?

For me, the answer at the moment is yes. Maybe that will change soon. I don’t know.

I’ll come by Facebook on occasion, and as always I’ll enjoy perusing and liking things my friends post. But for now, if you want to interact with me, send me a message or write me an email. Let’s do that one-on-one, and not in front of a world audience.

 

 

 

Serenity NOW!

I started to watch “Happyish” on Netflix. The script was very good. But what became evident to me by episode 3 was the worldview… so ugly. The world sucks. People are awful.

I had to stop watching, because I don’t want to feel hopeless, and right now things in our society feel a little, well, wretched.

It’s not hard for me to go there. I have negativity in me, too, even though I try to accentuate the positive. But this new world order of 24 hour news coverage and social media seems to push us toward snark and cynicism, not to mention simple, garden-variety hatred. Shit. Go to Twitter. People are often quite dreadful. Social media has given awful people a gassed-up vehicle for their terribleness.

And it feels like Hollywood has jumped on board. We all can name 5 popular shows about awful people. It’s really hard right now to find stuff to watch that isn’t gleeful about its sour worldview. Difficult People is very funny, and you can kind of see its tongue firmly in cheek, but man. Try watching an episode or two of that and then see how optimistic you feel about our society.

I’m writing this after a week of more terrorist attacks worldwide than I can count. A couple weeks after a devastating show of police brutality against two black males, followed by a heartbreaking massacre of police officers in Dallas. And now Baton Rouge.

Believe me, I’m lost in it. I can tell that many of us feel lost in it, unable to breathe.

And then the Republican National Convention starts with a benediction that cast Democrats as the enemy, and speaker after speaker spewed anger and heaped hatred on anyone not agreeing with that narrow view of the world.

And the response from the left has been similarly hate-filled. And I feel it, too. I feel hatred in my heart, too.

But then I think of the reasons I write books for young people. I don’t do it to fill their hearts with hatred. I do it because I sincerely want young people–especially young, LGBTQ people–to live with love and peace in their hearts, which is particularly crucial because of the vile hatred so many young LGBTQ people face every day. I want to help all young people find in books what I found as a young person, which was an opportunity to understand myself and people like me, as well as people not like me. Literature absolutely can do that. It’s that feeling you get when you’re reading and your heart opens and you think, like the awful grandmother at the very end of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”:

“Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” 

I get the irony that she was shot in the chest the next moment. But her last-moment realization that we are all one is exactly what I’m talking about. Her heart blooms. She gets it. Our connection to each other.

We are all we got, baby!

What do we do? How do we heal this all? I don’t know. I just know that anger and hatred are easy. Even if you’re right in your anger and hatred. Heck, that makes it even easier.

The amazing Anne Lamott was recently wondering the same thing on Facebook.

“I wish there was an 800 number we could call to find out, so I could pass this along to my worried Sunday School kids. But no. Yet in the meantime, I know that we MUST respond. We must respond with a show of force equal to the violence and tragedies, with love force. Mercy force. Un-negotiated compassion force. Crazy care-giving to the poor and suffering, including ourselves. Patience with a deeply irritating provocative mother. Two dollar bills to the extremely annoying guy at the intersection who you think maybe could be working, or is going to spend your money on beer. Jesus didn’t ask the blind man what he was going to look at after He restored the man’s sight. He just gave hope and sight; He just healed.

To whom can you give hope and sight today. What about to me, and disappointing old you? Radical self-care: healthy food, patience and a friendly tone of voice, lotions on the jiggly things, forgiving pants, lots of sunscreen and snacks. Maybe the random magazine.”

That’s about as good an answer as I can come up with. It comes down to us. And we will give in to anger and hatred, because those are perfectly normal reactions to everything right now, because everything feels so fucked up. Just look at my Facebook page to see how I go back and forth between love and fear, rage and light.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

But the response begins with us. We can personally fight hate with love. And I will try, again today, to do just that. I hope you will, too.

Text of My Stonewall Book Award Speech

People have been asking for the text of my Stonewall Book Award speech at the American Library Association Conference in Orlando, Florida, earlier today.

Here you go!

—

Thank you so much. Thank you to those on the Stonewall Award committee. I was blown away to learn about this honor, especially in a year with so many stellar young adult books that depict diverse aspects of the LGBTQ experience. I am honored simply to have my work considered on the same level as some of these incredible novels.

Thank you to my family at Scholastic, whom I happen to love, dearly. Cheryl Klein, my editor, will forever be the person in my life who saved me. Seriously. Before my second novel, Openly Straight, found a home, I thought it was quite possible I’d never be published again. This possibility terrified me, because I had so much more to say. Cheryl gave me a chance, despite not-so-stellar sales numbers for my first book, Out of the Pocket. And I will forever be grateful for that opportunity, and also for her brilliance as an editor.

Thanks to my agent, Linda Epstein. She believed in me when my own belief was faltering.

Thanks to my husband, who is my biggest supporter and fan. When I met Chuck 12 years ago, suffice it to say that relationships were not a part of my skill set. And then I met the perfect person for me, and I had to figure it out really quick. There have been times I haven’t been quite up to the task, but Chuck has been patient with me and I didn’t know it was possible to love someone as much as I love Chuck Cahoy. It just keeps getting better.

I have so many more people to thank, but I could literally spend the next 10 minutes thanking people. I hope that I’ve been good about sharing my gratitude with all of those for whom I am grateful, because, well, I have a lot I want to say and I don’t want to put you to sleep.

I wrote this book because far too often in my experience, LGBTQ people are made to feel as if the religious/spiritual realm is not our place. And I think that’s awful. I believe the cosmic mystery is a gift for all of us, and I wanted to reclaim it for young LGBTQ people. I know… ambitious.

In The Porcupine of Truth, 18-year-old Aisha Stinson is kicked out of her home for being a lesbian. At the end of the journey of the book, she says she’s “scrambled.” When asked what that means, she says, “I’m sad. But also I’m done. Like truly done with them. And I’m done letting them own God. Nobody gets to use God as a weapon against me anymore. I just fucking reject that stuff. Nobody owns my God.”

I can’t tell you how much the mass shooting at Pulse here in Orlando brought this home for me.

I’m done, too. Completely and utterly done, and here’s what I think:

It’s time for a religious revolution. For us all to rise up and say no to those who would use God as a weapon. Whether it’s telling people they cannot love who they love, based on race, or religion, or sexual or gender orientation. Or that they are lesser in the eyes of God. This is for the false prophets who claim to speak for God, yet utter any phrase that contradicts the idea that we should endeavor to love each other, all of us. For those who would pass off their hatred of LGBTQ people to their children, children who may be mentally ill and yet still have unlimited access to weapons of mass destruction because of the absurd power wielded by certain organizations, organizations which seem to own politicians to such a degree that it doesn’t matter that 90% of Americans wish to see stricter gun control laws.

It’s high time for us—all of us, by the way—to embrace progressive spiritual and religious leaders who reject violence, hate, and bigotry. You don’t have to believe to embrace. And the reason to embrace them is that they have the power to influence so many people. And it’s time for us as a society to say NO MORE to those who would have us believe that God hates anything.

In The Porcupine of Truth, an older gay man named Turk tells Carson and Aisha, “Rigidity is dangerous. When someone tells you they know exactly what God is, run from that person.”

Another character, Laurelei, says that whatever a person believes to be true about God is utterly, undeniably true, so long as you add two words: “For me.”

I so want to live in a world where we can all celebrate NOT knowing, together. Where we can all have our own notions of what God is or is not, whether they come from the Bible, the Koran, or any number of amazing sources. To me, that’s what I want written on my gravestone. That in some small way, I helped create a world where we’re all allowed to explore ideas and express them to each other, without someone having to be right. And know they’re right. That’s the danger.

And that’s where we come in, writers and librarians. Toni Morrison, the greatest living American writer, says, “All the books are questions for me. … I write them because I don’t know something.”

We as writers and proponents of literacy would do well to keep this in mind. We can practice not knowing the answer, seeking the elusive Porcupines of Truth that are just out of our grasp, and we can model how literature helps us to understand the minds, actions and perspectives of other people. It doesn’t offer answers, but it offers great questions, and those young people who begin to seek their own answers will become tomorrow’s leaders. If you’re putting good books in the hands of young people, you are helping to create this better world. I believe that to be true.

And beyond that, by displaying titles with LGBTQ protagonists in your library, you send the message to teens who are LGBTQ that they matter, and to those who aren’t that you don’t have to be LGBTQ to read these books. The first is life-saving. The second is world-changing.

In case you don’t believe that books save lives, let me tell you a story. Recently, a teenage fan from Missouri friended me on Facebook. A couple weeks ago, he asked me if I could talk to him about how to come out to his very conservative, religious family. I told him I’d be happy to do so, but that I needed a few days to gather my thoughts. Also, I was on vacation.

The night before I was set to talk to him, I saw he had posted on Facebook that his stepfather had outed him to his mother, and it hadn’t gone well. His mother had told the rest of the family, and they were all screaming at him that he was being possessed by Satan. His mother put him in Christian counseling, restricted his access to friends, and threw out all of his books.

I spoke to him the next day. He said losing his books was the worst part of it. He said books were his “low-key boyfriend.” What a great kid.

Here’s something he said to me by message that day: “I want a boyfriend. I can’t have that. I want my amazing romance novels. I can’t have that. I was to be able to say, ‘hey guys, I’m gay.’ I can’t. I am tired of ‘I can’t.’

“’I can’t’ are literally the worst two words in my life.”

Let’s you and me work to make a world for the millions of kids out there like my friend where they can say, with confidence, “I can.”

The Porcupine of Truth e-book on sale!

So let’s say… you’re one of those people who LOVED Openly Straight, but for some odd reason you haven’t picked up The Porcupine of Truth yet.First off, why? What the heck? What could you possess you to do such a silly thing?

But most importantly, today you can remedy that.

In honor of Gay Pride Month, The Porcupine of Truth is on sale for $2.99. Go buy it!

 

The Scoliosis Couch and Microwaved Peeps

I wrote a sentence this morning that made me smile:

“We draped ourselves across the Scoliosis couch and devoured microwaved Peeps.”

It made me smile because it reminded me of something I have been thinking about recently, and I thought it would make a good online writing lesson.

The subject: specificity.

I want to take you through the formation of the above sentence. I’ve been seeing a lot of sentences these last three months as the writer-in-residence for the Mesa Library, and that has really helped me to solidify my own craft.

In this case, I’m writing a scene between two teenage friends. They are a little “alt,” perhaps. They share a certain irreverent sense of humor. I want to place that scene in a setting, and in my mind, I go through the possibilities. I’ve placed them in a coffee shop before. Also a living room. They are eating and talking, so it’s probably an inside location, especially since it is December in Colorado.

A basic first-draft sentence might be, “We sat on the couch and talked.”

Fine. That’s a start. But we’ve read that sentence before, haven’t we? On a scale of 1 to 10, how interesting is that as a scene starter? Maybe a 1 or 2?

So how do I fix it? Two things.

One is to give them an activity.

Two is to make the setting stand out.

Brilliant author Randall Kenan was one of my teachers in college back in the 1990s. His first exercise I still remember, more than 20 years later. In it, he asked us to go to the grocery store and write down as many brand names as we could find. Then, when we brought those to class, he gave us the assignment: write a story in which the only nouns you can use are the brand names you found.

That was a really fun assignment. I remember writing about a Sheik, a Swiss Miss, and her Tastykakes. After we had fun reading some of the stories aloud in class, Kenan gave us the lesson: there are so many nouns out there. Unchain yourselves! Use them!

What a great lesson. And so important! Good writing, I am more and more certain, is about great nouns. Verbs are fine, and there’s nothing wrong with finding the perfect, rarely used active verb. But it’s nouns that carry the weight of the story.

And it’s nouns that we turn to when we need to find interesting actions and make our settings stand out.

 

When I thought of the Scoliosis couch, I pictured an elbow-shaped couch that is too short for a person above, say, 5-foot-10 to lie down on without having to twist their body. I pictured it in a furnished basement where a teen has created a hang-out space. Clearly he and his friend have a lot of shared experience, humor and language, because they’ve christened it the Scoliosis couch. Perfect. A good image, an interesting place for a scene where I haven’t been before. And the specific sensual data–the curved couch–makes the setting feel real.

So now we have, “We sat on the Scoliosis couch and talked.”

Better. A specific place that we can unpack that will tell us a bit about our characters. And people do talk. The problem is that we don’t want our characters to sit there and just talk. I may, once in a novel during an important conversation, allow characters to “just talk.” But typically I want the conversation to occur over action. What can people do while talking? Play video games? Sure, but that’s not that that interesting. In my books, I’ve had characters talk while playing checkers using sugar packets in a diner, while playing laser tag, and while having an apple war in an apple orchard.

Do you see what I’m trying to say here? Give the reader something memorable. My teacher Ron Carlson used to say, “Put something in your book.” I took that as was a clever way of saying, “fill the pages with interesting actions, words, inventory.”

Eating is an easy one, and yes, my characters eat. But if I can help it, I’d like to have them eat interesting things. Especially if what they eat will evoke character.

So I thought of microwaved Peeps, as one does. I came up with this concept about a decade ago, and my husband can vouch that he has seen me microwave many a Peep in my day. Not anymore, by the way. I am eating healthier these days. In fact, you can take it a step further and have characters talk while watching a Peeps joust. That’s where you stand thee Peeps up and put toothpicks in them so it’s like they’re holding swords out at each other. The first to burst loses.

So yes. Now we have a vivid first sentence. We can see the couch. Our interest as readers is perked up by the odd food choice. And we know something about these characters that would otherwise need to be told–that they are, well, quirky. As my characters often are.

Tears of the Clowns

Yesterday I visited a terrific middle school in Washington State. This is the first year they have an “Equality Club,” thusly named because the principal mandated that the name not include any of the letters associated with LGB or T.

I walked into a library where 20 smiling kids sat around, slumped on couches, braiding each other’s hair. They looked so happy! It made me feel so good about the progress that is being made for young people who identify as LGBTQ.

The first comments confirmed this belief. One boy who identifies as gay mentioned someone saying a gay slur, and since it led off, I assumed that was a notable experience at this middle school. And part of me thought: thank God. They aren’t being physically bullied every day.

Then a girl talked about relatives who are over-correcting because she came out as a lesbian. They say too many positive things about her sexuality. I smiled, because that’s what Openly Straight is about in many ways. And I get how frustrating that can be, when a label overtakes a person. And yet, a part of me thought: thank God. Her family accepts her.

And we talked. The questions came in, and we laughed a lot. These were some sharp kids, and they had come out as pan, and bi, and gay, and lesbian, and there were kids of various genders mentioned, and it was all basically okay.

And then I brought up the challenges I faced when I was in school. Back in the 1400s, when  I was their age, there weren’t a whole lot of LGBT role models to look up to. The kids listened intently, perhaps trying to imagine what that would be like. Somebody brought up  the issue of suicide, so I did my usual talk about how glad I am today that I didn’t take that road, because I did suffer depression as a teenager, deep depression. And there were many times I didn’t think I’d make it through. But I did, and look at all the things that have happened in my life! None of those things would have happened had I ended my life. Sometimes you just need to have faith that it’s important to see what happens next. I believe that with every fabric of my being, and say it to every young person who will listen.

The conversation changed after that. One person mentioned that the person they are dating attempted suicide last week because their father is so homophobic they can’t figure out how to tell him. Another talked about cutting, and a third said, “I’ve done that, too.” One mentioned an eating disorder.

I always do what I can in those situations, which is admittedly not much. I empathize and listen, basically, because I strongly believe that kids need to say these things and be heard. Disease loves the darkness. When we share our pain with others, the light diminishes that pain.

When I left with the librarian who brought me in to speak, we commiserated. These are just such wonderful kids. And they’re so, so lucky to have friends, and a safe space, and adults who are paying attention to them. And yet. There’s still so much pain. It’s so hard to be different in this world, and meanness is everywhere, and we both just want to fix it, but we can’t fix it. Kids just have to go through the minefield, and it’s excruciating to watch sometimes.

And then, this morning, I came across this. Republican State Legislator Gordon Klingenschmitt, who has a program called “Pray in Jesus Name,” explains that gays will come into your home and demand to have sex there.

This is funny stuff, right? I’ve been a gay man for quite a few years, and it has never occurred to me to demand to have sex in a strangers home. I’m so caught up sometimes in the fact that there are people who would do us harm, that it’s hard enough to hold hands in public with my husband. I mean, who thinks something like that?

Well, as it turns out, some people do. And what it made me think this morning is that we adults who are out and (semi) well adjusted can laugh about this. But you know who isn’t laughing? LGBT kids who are just coming out. Do you know how damaging it is to be told by a lawmaker voted in by citizens that, as Klingenschmitt says, “We’ve got to stand up against Satan, who is inside of them.”

In The Porcupine of Truth, Aisha says that the worst thing you can do to a person is tell them that God doesn’t love them. I believe that’s true. I also believe that when a person tells you who and what God is, and what God believes, you should run, fast.

I guess what I want to say is this. I have Republican friends. I happen to believe that it’s okay to believe differently than me, on just about any topic. I may not get it, but you can be more fiscally conservative than me, more socially conservative, you name it. But what I really struggle with is stuff that hurts kids. And if you’re a Republican, and you’re voting by party line, the sad truth is you may well be pressing the lever for someone like this.

Is this what you believe? Because in my experience, I’ve met some people who do think that LGBT people are possessed. But mostly what I’ve met are people who are, in one way or another, more conservative than I am. Which is a far stretch from believing in demonic possession. And you better believe that a person with power saying like this impacts young people.

Is this what you stand for? In most cases, I think not. I think most people do not wish to say things that disenfranchise entire groups of people, especially those most vulnerable, like LGBTQ youth.

These are the smiling kids you see, so much more well adjusted than we were, three decades ago. And I’m here to tell you. For so many of them, there are still tears inside.

Please pay attention to whom you vote for. And this goes for Democrats, too, as there are wingnut Dems, too. Just not as many of ’em.

It’s a life or death situation out there.

The Weirdest Writer’s Block Ever…

I’m aware that it’s been more than a month since I posted, and I left readers on a bit of a cliffhanger with my last post. I’m sorry for anyone who was worried about me after reading that. I’m okay now.

What I just went through was one of the most … disruptive events of my life, if not the most. I wish I could find a better word. Jarring? I was just moseying along with my life, happy as ever, got a pain in my stomach one day, and … boom. A couple days later I was in surgery, and that didn’t go so smoothly, and then there was an infection at an incision site, and then there was anemia. It was a lot to deal with and it really threw me off my game to the point that I didn’t want to be out in public with people. I felt too awkward and messed up.

The last week or two, I seem to be coming back and I am so very grateful to be getting my health back. It’s like, when you have your health, you don’t think about it. And then when you don’t, it’s all you think about. That’s not a great system, is it? It would be better if we thought about the health we have when we have it, and not focus so much on it when we don’t. Maybe this is a me and not a we thing?

Anyway, the one thing that hasn’t happened since I got sick is my own writing. Heck, I barely wrote a blog post, and I struggled to even post much on Facebook. I can hardly explain it still, but I felt entirely unable to communicate with writing, which is, of course, what I do.

Instead, I threw myself into my teaching at The Piper Center, and my private editing gig, and new work at the Mesa Library, where I am Writer-in-Residence the next couple months. I’ve been helping tons of people, which feels wonderful, but I’ve been utterly unable to help myself.

I always tell my student who talk about writer’s block to give yourself permission to write poorly, and to take off your editor hat and let your inner critic leave the room. This is all sound advice, but it hasn’t yet gotten me to the point that I’ve written a new word on my newest novel-in-progress since February. I’m sure something interesting is going on there. There must be something existential about coming into contact with your mortality and how it impacts creative work, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

No matter. Today I am in a coffee shop, and once I press publish on this, I am opening my manuscript and writing for AT LEAST an hour. I don’t care if it’s crap. I simply have to get back to it, as a writer writes, always. Just not this writer, recently.

The Week of the Gangrene

I’m sitting in a coffee shop (Chuck drove me! I’m out of the house for the first time!) and I’m just … crying.

It’s strange to be crying in a coffee shop. I went into the back where there was an empty seat, but then I immediately realized I wanted to be out by the windows where there was life and action. And as I ambled back across the shop, I began to sob.

I am enough of an emotional idiot that I’m not exactly sure what’s up, but not enough of one to be entirely clueless. I get that I am feeling a lot of emotions together, and that’s overwhelming for me.

I’ve said a few things on social media about what’s been going on, but I haven’t fully written about it. So I will now. And perhaps that will help me uncover what all this feeling is about.

So here’s what happened: Last Sunday night, as I was going to sleep, I felt this odd pain in my upper abdomen. It was uncomfortable, almost like trapped gas right near my heart, and I couldn’t find any comfortable position. It got worse. By midnight, it had radiated to my back. I woke Chuck, feeling silly about doing so, but not sure what I was supposed to do. The pain increased. By the time he drove me to the ER at 1 or so, I realized we’d left too late; I was in the worst pain of my life and I just couldn’t take another second, it felt like.

I was literally wailing in agony during intake, asking them to “put me out, anything, please, please.” I was praying to God to take away the pain or just help me get through it.

They put me on morphine. It didn’t take right away. The pain began to subside around 3:30.

The doctor said it was a gallbladder attack, but there wasn’t really anything to do but give me pain meds and send me home, and have me to make an appointment with a gallbladder surgeon.

Monday I mostly slept. I did a little work.

Early Tuesday, the pain began to come back, slowly. By Tuesday night, I was back in the same pain, but worse, and since I had an appointment the next day, just sort of deal with it.

The pain stayed. All told, the “attack” I had lasted 22 hours. As I later learned, it wasn’t an attack. But that’s another story.

I saw the doctor at noon and he knew right away that I needed surgery ASAP. He had his scheduler start calling to see when. He said he’d try for the same day, but we might have to wait a day. The idea of this filled me dread but I understood.

They got me a time: 5:30 the same day. Thank God!

I really had no idea how much of a blessing that would turn out to be.

They started anesthesia around 6:15. By that time, my will to exist anymore was … dulled.

The next thing I knew it was 9:30, maybe. I remember things in waves:

“Breathe…”

“It’s okay…”

“Gangrene…”

Even in my drugged-up haze, there was a part of me that understood that the surgery didn’t go as well as hoped.

Here’s what happened: When they opened me up laparoscopically, they found my gallbladder had gone gangrenous. This can happen after a long period of gallbladder disease, which can be silent, apparently, because I had no idea. The 22-hour attack was actually just the acute inflammation, which means my gallbladder was dying, basically.

It could have ruptured at any time, at which time the poison inside would have rushed throughout my body, and I would have gone into septicemia. Which is another way to say septic shock, I suppose.

To make things worse, it was nestled in a very fatty liver. I’ve long known that my numbers have pointed to poor health, but this was the first time the impact of that was seen. The liver is very delicate, but especially challenging when fatty. They had to cauterize it every time they touched it.

Thank God they did such a professional job. I will be forever grateful to Dr. Kavin Masur for his fine work.

So yes, they say gallbladder surgery can be a breeze these days. Mine was not one of those.

I was in the hospital for 36 hours. They had to catheterize me at one point. That was … that was not something you want. While I was in the hospital, I felt like a different person. It was like I couldn’t find me. Some of that was the drugs, probably. Lots of pain meds.

I was thrilled to go home Friday afternoon and be surrounded by my dogs, though one of them–Buford–seems pretty sure a swift kick to my abdomen would move him up the ladder in our pack. I’m wary of the boy.

A word about my husband: Chuck is the most amazing person I’ve ever known. His capacity for love seems unending to me. He’s been with me every step, and I don’t think I could have done this without him. He is an incredible caretaker, and when he needs one, I will use his beautiful care of me as an example.

Each day has been a little better. The first day, we went for a walk. It was outside, down to the mailbox, and over two houses. That was all I could take. You really atrophy when you don’t use your body, I guess!

Now I’m up to all the way down to the end of the block, across the street, and back.

I’m still needing a lot of rest, but I’m really thankful to be at a coffee shop even though it’s not the most comfortable. I need to push myself to do more each day, and this is more.

As for the tears?

 

Well there’s gratitude for sure. I’m alive! Last week was the first time in my life that I really could have died, and it’s been hard to get my head around that. I’m grateful for a medical system that could fix me when I broke, and for the good wishes of my family and friends, and the outpouring of love.

And I’m angry. I’m mad at myself and I’m working on forgiving myself for what I did to my body. For years, I’ve been told that my “numbers” aren’t good. They call it metabolic syndrome. And I knew that my diet was to blame for that. I’ve always liked sweets and fried stuff and red meat and processed foods, and it’s easy when your numbers suck but you look pretty darn good to give yourself a pass. I did for probably … 20 years? I think it was probably around the time I was 25 that I first heard that my BP and cholesterol was high. And I kept saying, “I’ll fix it with diet and exercise.” And I kept not doing that, or doing it for a bit and then stopping. This disease was directly related to my poor diet, and I had it for a long time, apparently. And that fatty liver? That IS metabolic syndrome.

As it turned out, I was on about day 14 of a no processed sugar diet when this happened. I had countered this by upping my meat consumption, as I often do. I rationalize that food is my only remaining escape place. So yeah, take my sugar, but leave me something I love, please.

No longer! I can safely say the blinders are off. If I wish to live a life beyond a couple more years, diet and exercise are center. Today is day 23 of the no processed sugar diet, but now it’s been joined these last five days by no red meat, no fatty anything, no exceptions. And that thing where they tell you to watch portions? And have a plate with more greens than protein? That was always something I shrugged off. Not anymore.

In 23 days, I’m down 15 pounds. I’ve been perfect these last five days, and a lot of the weight has come off then. I don’t actually have THAT much weight to lose, but it’ll be off in a hurry anyway. And then, when my body can take it, exercise.

Another word about “escape.” One thing I have prided myself on these last 13 years has been the internal work I’ve done on me. Working on becoming the best person I can be. To define my values and make choices in line with those values, and to work on getting better anytime I fail to do so. I am not ashamed or afraid to say that I have used a lot of different substances in my life to counter difficult feelings I don’t want to feel. Gambling, sex, and food have been the big three. And those first two? I’ve put ’em away. I know I can live without using either of those “drugs.” Today I believe to the bottom of my heart that I can make choices in my life to mask my emotions with my drugs of choice or feel them. Today I choose to feel. Which is why I’m crying in a coffee shop.

And today I believe to the bottom of my heart that I can do the same with food. That I am an adult who can make proper choices that honor my body and soul.

I will check in once in a while about my decision to stop using food as a drug, but mostly know that I’m kicking and screaming to get back to my life. Things are about to get VERY interesting professionally for me and my writing.

Some things you just know.

The Porcupine with Its Sticker

I love how the Stonewall Book Award sticker looks on The Porcupine of Truth!

The paperback will be released on Aug. 30, just in time for the school year. I’m available for Skype visits with classes that read the book… just email me at bkonigsberg@gmail.com to set something up!