Self-Reflections in Fiction

Recently, I was named as a finalist in the Page Turner Awards for my first completed novel entitled Fractured.  The log line for this book is:

A woman with a visual impairment leaves her abusive fiancé and finds herself falling in love with a soldier struggling with PTSD.  She nearly dies in the attempt to rescue her new love interest from her obsessive and dangerous ex- fiancé.

In this logline, there is a part of myself I put into the female main character.  Recently I was asked by someone I greatly respect as a professor and mentor.  Dr. Dee has encouraged me to pursue my writing and is still trying to talk me into going back to school for my PhD.  She’s a wonderful woman and I admire her.  She asked how it felt to put personal issues out there for public consumption.

In truth, I really wasn’t thinking about the parallels between myself and Sam.  I was thinking how cool it would be for Sam and her love interest to meet during a shopping expedition. 

So often, people see visually impaired or blind people in public and assume they are either helpless or incompetent.  The thing is that many of us; I am visually impaired, are very competent, independent, and would prefer to do things on our own just as sighted people do.  One of the primary parallels between Sam and me is that I’m not especially keen on asking for help.  I am extremely independent.  I have been told that my level of independence can be insulting to those who want to help me.  It’s not about the other person so much as for some reason, I feel I have something to prove to myself.  “I can do it” or “I got it” are often phrases that roll off my tongue as if they are mantras.  Then, when I saw Dr. Dee’s question, I wondered if the traits and issues I gave my characters were deliberate.

Sam has bits and pieces of me, sprinkled throughout her character.  She is a fighter.  She is smart, and majority of the time she is content to be ordinary.  She loves her job.  She loves her clients and patients.  She wants to be better than what she has become after her ex-fiancé’s abuse.  She becomes more throughout the novel, but that is something that you’ll have to find out when you read the book.  The pieces of me I chose to put in Sam were not deliberate.  Often, as writers, we are told to write what we know.  And that is what I did.  I wrote about visual impairment.  I wrote about love.  I wrote about life and how it sends us down paths we wouldn’t normally travel if we were left to our own devices.  Humans are rarely left to our own devices, and Sam finds this out as she makes her way through Fractured.

It feels good to realize that I placed a part of myself in my first novel.  I was not afraid to share my visual impairment with the world.  There is no shame in being who I am, and my visual impairment is very much a part of who I am and definitely played a part in who I have become over the years.  What’s really interesting is that I am significantly more visually impaired than my character.  I remember having the level of vision Sam has in the novel and I could still do a lot more by myself than I can now.  Oh, how I miss those days.  It was nice to step back into those more useful eyes, but I’m happy with what I have now.  I can still see well enough to see my screen if it’s enlarged enough to give my mother motion sickness when she tries to use it.  I can still read print as long as it’s under a video magnifier to enlarge the print and change the contrast to a black background with yellow letters.  I know it sounds strange, but it’s marvelous to me.  I love my iPhone and iPad; they read Kindle books to me, my computer also reads when she’s not in her feelings, and I have talking this and talking that.  Just imagine the lights going out, then flickering back on, and just about everything from the microwave to the computer going off telling you that it’s turned back on.  Now, don’t shoot me for giving you that sensory illusion.

I feel lucky to share my story with the world, whether its personal or not.  I’m looking forward to people comprehending a little of what it’s like to be visually impaired.  It’s not some mysterious miraculous thing.  It’s adapting, coping, and just plain living.  It feels good to help people realize how we live and adapt just like the rest of the world.  Maybe I will write another book with another visually impaired or totally blind person in the near future.  Be on the look out for my updates and news.  I have placed the link for my Page Turner Awards Finalist Page below, so you can get a sneak peak into Sam and Sy’s world.  Leave a comment if you like and if its still an option vote.

I look forward to writing with you again soon.  Stay well! & Keep creating!

CSA

Page Turner Award:

https://pageturnerawards.com/writing-award-finalists/clennell-anthony

If you looking for a writer’s group, take a look around Writers’ Mastermind:

Writers’ Mastermind Group: https://members.letsgetpublished.com/ProsePusherCSA/free-trial