Tough Topics

“Wow, you really like to tackle the tough topics, don’t you?”

That’s what my literary coach said to me after he read some of my ‘stuff’ recently.  The ‘stuff’ he read was from book number one (published already) and book two (to be published in March 2022).  Book one, When He Was Anna: A Mom’s Journey Into the Transgender World is a memoir documenting the first two years of my journey as the mother of a transgender teenager.  Book two, Unholy Scandal, is the story of a Catholic Priest who is accused of the sexual abuse of minors but who maintains his innocence. It is based on a true story.

In August 2019 I started working on my book When He Was Anna.  That book was completed in May 2020 and was published in November 2020. It took about nine months to write, which seemed like an eternity at the time. WHWA was the first book I published, but technically it wasn’t my first book.    

My first book was started in 2006, which is fifteen years ago as I write this.  I’ve spent fifteen years starting and stopping.  It was painful to write, so I’d give up, telling myself that I’d get back to it soon. I’d pick it up again months later, sometimes years later, and the pain would cause me to stop. 

In the summer of 2019, I decided that it was time to put on my big girl pants and finish the book.  I had to push through; it was time.  And I was pushing through, determined to finish.  My plan was to publish that book in 2020 no matter what. But there’s a saying if you want to make God laugh tell him your plans.

Well, God laughed, because He had another plan for me. One day he told me very clearly what that plan was.  In the middle of writing   Unholy Scandal when a voice (yes, I believe that it was truly the voice of God) told me that it was time to write my story.   That’s when I started working on When He Was Anna.  Once again, Unholy Scandal was put on hold. 

I learned quickly that the pain of writing Unholy Scandal was second only to the pain of writing When He Was Anna.  Tears shed is a good unit of measurement here, mainly because I am NOT a crier.  When I wrote When He Was Anna the tears flowed frequently. When I wrote Unholy Scandal I cried rarely, mostly at the very end.  Compared to WHWA, US was a piece of cake.

Both books could have been filled with controversy, and maybe to some people they are, but that wasn’t my goal with either.  I prefer to think that they provide enlightenment. 

So, yes, it appears that I like to tackle the tough topics.  Somebody has to, right?