A BOOK TO JUDGE BY ITS COVER

A BOOK TO JUDGE BY ITS COVER

 

“Sometimes the strongest manacles in this life are the bonds forged from painful memories of a past so horrific, that they shackle and incarcerate the very essence of one’s soul…inevitably, the constraint is a life sentence.” ~Taylor~

Taylor Evan Fulks is a practicing Registered Nurse First Assistant, specializing in open heart surgery to pay the bills. She’s also a wife, a mother of two very challenging (in a good way) teenage daughters, and an ardent “nocturnal gardener” due to her ongoing battle with skin cancer. She resides in a quaint and picturesque town in Southern Ohio along the banks of the Ohio River. MY PRISON WITHOUT BARS: THE JOURNEY OF A DAMAGED WOMAN TO SOMEPLACE NORMAL is her debut novel.

 

Your book, My Prison Without Bars, reveals your experience with child abuse. What gave you the courage to write your story?

My book is very dark, disturbing, and quite graphic. It didn’t start out that way I can assure you. I sat down to write Mystery/Romance. I’m a voracious reader (over 700 books since 2007) and I thought, “How hard can it be?”  I found myself unable to write what I wanted. I think all of us sit down and write what we know, at least the first time we put pen to paper.

I kept hearing a little voice in the back of my head (I’m tight, I assure you! I don’t have voices in my head) but I had this niggling… “Tell your story.”

So I did.

It started out pretty much just like the other stories out there about child sexual abuse; innocuous,  letting the reader make their inferences and images, not too much detail, but just enough that you could get the gist of what had happened. Then Penn State, Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky and the whole Child Sexual Abuse scandal hit the national news. I was one third of the way into my story when all hell broke loose.

I was enthralled, thrilled beyond words, not only with the stance taken by the University and the NCAA against Penn State’s Athletic Department and Joe Paterno, but also the ruling by the Justice System against the now convicted, Jerry Sandusky. I watched everything I could concerning the case, hoping that this high profile situation would bring to light the millions afflicted by this pandemic.

I watched interviews being grossly edited, riots and vigils being staged by students and faculty. Then my life changed forever. I watched in horror as a large group of students, faculty and some University administrators were being interviewed on the campus after the statue of Joe Paterno was unceremoniously taken down. They were outraged. I watched a gentleman look into the camera and cry foul, saying, “The punishment is too harsh for the crime!”

I was beyond RAGE… something inside of me snapped! I actually felt possessed. I went to the beginning of my novel, read through the first eight chapters that described the abuse (leaving much to the reader’s imagination) then I tore it to shreds! I started OVER…

The words poured out of me like a faucet with a busted valve. I wrote with rage and fury, letting the words and experiences flow from the depths of me. I wrote until my hand cramped and my fingers were numb…then I cried. I cried for myself and then for all the innocent children that are lost and have no voice, and possibly no chance of rescue. I cried in solitude for that little girl inside of me…

 

Did you find writing your personal account to be a healing experience, traumatic, or somewhere in between?

That’s a hard question to answer.  I think it was a dose of all three. I wrote my story in first person, as a novel or fictional memoir from the mind, body, and heart of a child. I didn’t want to shock or be grotesque…I wanted people to truly know the permanent damage that is inflicted, to know the depths of fear and self-loathing, and to really feel through the experiences of an abused child.

It wasn’t until I sat down to edit, that I truly realized the magnitude of what I had written. Don’t get me wrong, I never forgot, blacked out or had repressed memories…no, I remember everything that happened to me, down to the smells and noises around me. But it wasn’t until I read what I had committed to paper, saw from the perspective of the child I had been, that I really got the significance of what I was about to do.

So, for good or bad, I laid myself naked and exposed to the world (or at least to the few friends that would actually read my book). I bared myself before everyone to be judged, criticized and condemned.  I left nothing to the imagination…I take the reader far beyond what is comfortable and far beyond what most would consider appropriate. And in the telling…I have been set free.

I spent thirteen months reliving my childhood nightmare with the goal of exorcising my demons, gaining some sense of self-esteem, healing myself, and finally telling my dirty little secret with full disclosure, while giving the reader full access to my heart. Oddly, I didn’t find the outcomes I expected…absolution, understanding, and self-forgiveness. But I did find something I didn’t expect…Acceptance. The acceptance has been from within me.

My life is what it is. My experiences happened in the past. I don’t live there anymore. I can choose to be angry and ashamed for the rest of my life, or I can accept my life for what it’s been, what it is now, and move toward the light…and who knows, maybe help someone else along the way. Hence, my mission statement: The rest of my life will be the best of my life. It’s not about my destination…it’s about the journey that gets me there.

 

My Prison Without Bars is getting exceptional reviews and has won at least two prestigious awards. Child Sexual Abuse is a prevalent horror in our society, so why do you think traditional publishing is opposed to signing on books that discuss this topic?

My novel to date has done very well. On Amazon it has over 130~ 5 star reviews and is ranked in the Top 25 in two categories for twenty-four weeks. On Goodreads, my book maintains a 4.5 rating and has over 90 ratings/reviews.

As of June 1st 2013, my little “taboo novel” won 1st Place in the prestigious IRDA, INDIE READER DISCOVERY AWARDS presented at the BEA, BOOK EXPO OF AMERICA (the largest trade show for publishers and authors in the world) in NYC. I went to New York to accept this award.

I was recently notified that my book is a finalist in my category Reality/Fiction in the 2013 READERS FAVORITE INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS. The winners will be announced September 1, 2013 and the award ceremony will be held in Miami, Florida in mid-November. I plan to attend that ceremony as well.

“I’m proud to say the little girl inside my book (inside of me) is fine…I protect her now. This little girl has found her voice…”

 

Why the shun from traditional publishing? In a word…TABOO! It is abhorrent behavior in any civilized society. It is even referenced in the Bible as an abomination and a sin. Abusers and Society shape and hone victims into becoming the gate-keepers of secrets and shame, to be forever locked in a prison not of our own making. We like our world neat and tidy. Child Sexual Abuse isn’t neat and tidy. It’s a dark reminder that we as a society aren’t as ‘civilized’ as we think we are.

Standard publishers want edgy, over-the-top and pushing the envelope, as long as it’s pure fiction; something they can wrap their mind around. However, the mind is a compensatory computer, allowing a plethora of knowledge and feeling to flow through its pathways…yet, always filtering or camouflaging certain things, buffering and blocking others, or shutting off completely when unable to compute.

In other words, it makes sure the soul can handle the download. And therein lays the problem with Child Sexual Abuse. We hear those three words and our minds will only allow us to imagine so much before we filter, buffer, block, or completely shut off the things too unpleasant to handle.

When no one would give me a chance, my mission became clear…I had to take the reader to that dark, dismal, shameful place no one ever talks about and with my written words…make them feel. It has become a journey I’ve had to make alone…

“I know a place so dark that the only light in my life is the fact that I survived last night. I know a place so shameful, that the only hope in my life is surviving tonight, and the next night, and the next…”

 

Have you always wanted to be a writer or did your personal experience steer you in this direction?

I’m a storyteller in every sense of the word. I love to hold an audience of friends captive with my words…my spoken words. I’ve never had aspirations of being a writer. I put pen to paper (yes, I wrote my novel on eleven spiral notebooks…I’m old school) to stave off the empty nest syndrome looming over my horizon (my youngest daughter will graduate from high school in May 2014).

But I’ve fallen in love with writing and I’m actively writing my second novel, also based on a true story but totally different. This one is a Mystery/Romance…a labor of true love.

 

What is one of the most rewarding factors of having a book in print?

That’s easy! The emails and private messages I’ve received from readers, people I don’t even know that tell me how much my book has helped them, or how they know someone who’s a victim and will share my book with that person. Some have told me stories that make mine seem benign in comparison…some, have never told a soul about their nightmares. That blatant trust touches my soul and makes it all the negative directed toward me…not sting quite so much.

 

**I want to thank you Cherrye for the invitation to guest post on your blog. Because of the content and nature of my book, I don’t get many invitations. Your gracious invitation and subsequent posting touches my soul. It takes far more courage to speak out and make people aware…to go against the current, than it does to go with the tide to a place everyone has been. You honor me, my story and my life. I am truly humbled.

I hope what I’ve had to say, merits the honor…

 

Taylor~

No one’s hell is worse than someone else’s…But while you’re there, you endure it alone.

MY PRISON WITHOUT BARS viewBook.at/MyPrisonWithoutBarsTheJourneyofaDamagedWomant TAYLOR EVAN FULKS

www.taylorfulks.com

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