Dear Mr. Writer
In the mailbox: Will My Husband Hate Me If I Write About His Drinking And It's The Only Thing I Write That Ever Gets Published And Then It Also Wins An Award?
Dear Mr. Writer,
You’ve written about how your first published story you used a pen name because when your wife read it she got mad and feared what her friends and family would think of you and she herself was all of a sudden unsure who she had married and wanted to know, “What other sick sh*t is in your sick f*cking mind you sick, sick f*cking sicko?” You’ve hinted how you’ve written a story that you can’t share with your mother, because you’re worried if she read it, it’d break her heart - well, I have a question for you that is kind of a similar situation and I’m hoping you can answer. I can’t seem to write about anything except my husband’s drinking and how it affects our family and some of what I write is trash, but some of it is brilliant, but I’m worried if any of it gets published and he reads it that he’ll hate me.
Sincerely,
It’d Be Nice If I Could Write About Gardening Instead
Dear IBNIICWAGI,
Oh wow. 1) I’m honored you’d ask? But 2) how, how, how could I ever honestly answer this?
My first thought is that your husband will be more mad when he learns that you are asking than what you are asking. Husbands like to think they give the best advice and if you’re seeking advice from anyone it should be from him.1
But how can you ask your husband? What if he says, ‘quit writing!’ What if he says worse? What if…
Can I drop the affected arrogance and be honest?
My second thought is that: haha, I have been asking my version of this question for decades. But you know this. It’s probably why you asked me your question in the first place.
It’s a difficult question without an easy answer. I’ve found if you don’t set out to write about what’s in your heart, it will sneak its way into whatever you think you’re writing about anyway.
There are some tricks you know already:
Metaphorize it. Note: this risks confusion. Haha, do you believe I really can’t live without coffee? Ha! Or music! Ha!
Write under a pen name. This is not without its drawbacks. What if the story gets famous, gets optioned by an acclaimed filmmaker, you’re making millions, but you’re unable to sell another story and can’t reveal your proven record of success without revealing who you really are? On the other hand, Mark Twain seemed to do just fine and eventually Richard Bachman’s books got made into movies as much as Stephen King’s.
But it’s a deeper inquiry, isn’t it?
C.S. Lewis writes somewhere that he imagines the difference between heaven and hell is when all your secrets are revealed to all the universe - are you able to bear the exposure?2
But it doesn’t need to be the entire universe, does it? Just the judgment of your spouse is enough, I think, to either forever crush or eternally uplift.
My fear has always been that I’ll hurt someone that I care about - and for what? A story in a magazine somewhere that no one I know reads and that doesn’t get me any other stories published and paid $10 (or $500) but cost me some damage to someone I love?
Do you ever punch your husband? Maybe a good kick when he’s not expecting it? I assume he shrugs it off? How many hits would equal the hurt a story might cause? Could your marriage survive?
I have a story I hope my parents don’t read. If they do, most likely, they won’t remember the event I’ve fictionalized. Palahniuk tells how, after reading Fight Club, his father asked how he (Palahniuk) had imagined the dynamic between his own father (Palahniuk’s grandfather) and himself (Palahniuk’s father) so well. There are things my mom said when I was younger that when I asked about years later, she insists she never said. I’m not alone in this experience. Ask around. Everyone you know has a story about something they remember their parent saying that years later they discover the parent has absolutely no recollection of sharing. Before trick or treating, my mom told me to keep my younger brother close because his blond hair would make him a target for Satanists looking for a kid to sacrifice. Years later, I realized she couldn’t have believed that, because if she did she would have never let us leave the house. It was like her advice when I left the house on Friday nights that if I went to any parties and the party moved outside that I should stay near to the house in case there was a drive-by I would see the kids near the curb drop first and I would have time to duck. She had to be joking! But when I asked, years later, she had no memory of saying either. She actually seemed shocked. Defensive, even.
But…
What if one day my brother calls to tell me my parents hung themselves and beside the overturned chairs on the floor lay a copy of the book with its pages flapped opened to my story I hope they never read?
Are we over-imagining?? We’re writers. How could we not worry? Considering the highest stakes possible is the job.
Is it worth it?
<shrug emoji>
Everyone feels so alone all of the time and sometimes it is the reading of someone else’ story, learning that their interiority is not so different from your own, that gives you the strength to carry on. Sometimes your solution helps them find their solution. Sometimes simply knowing they’re not the only one suffering what you’re suffering is enough to not give up.
Did you know that I credit reading F Scott Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited during Covid for preventing me from casually descending into a day drinking habit I wouldn’t have been able to shrug off? That I don’t write with a glass of bourbon beside my laptop because I know how old Stephen King’s kids were and how much he was trying not to drink when he wrote The Shining?
And even if you don’t end up sharing your story, there’s value in putting your thoughts to paper. I’ve found that unnamed thoughts tend to ricochet around in my head, speeding up, knocking over lamps and denting brain matter, but by writing a feeling, by naming a dread - I can catch it, reduce its power, and that now named, the troubling thought is less out of control, the troubling thought becomes manageable.
But if you do end up sharing your story, it’s power not only for you, but for those that read your words and find strength through your naming. Who realize that, they too, can manage the problem.
Have you ever gone to Al-Anon? I’m sure you know this, but it was only this past year that I learned Al-Anon wasn’t an abbreviation for Alcoholics Anonymous, but a separate and complementing organization for the family and friends of alcoholics. Rules are the same, outside of the meetings you don’t reveal who you see there, and you can choose how much you personally reveal, so maybe no one will tell you that they are a writer too and have been there where you are… but it might be the best place to start? They got meetings presumably in every US city and also zoom gatherings.
-
There is one more thing, and it is maybe both depressing and freeing? You could tell your husband and all your friends and family that you got a story published, be all nervous about their reaction when they read it, and… nothing. Ever. Maybe a polite, “it was really good, I liked your descriptions,” but their praise is off, feels false, like they didn’t actually read it.
Because they probably won’t.
This is okay! I got a friend who years ago started teaching dance, who eventually opened her own studio - this is someone I talk to regularly and see on holidays - but I have never ever attended one of her classes. I have another buddy who gambles on the cruise ship circuit for the perks - he has spreadsheets on how much he can lose at blackjack stacked against the value of what he’s getting comped on food and drinks and discounted tickets - he has taken more classes on maximizing cruise ship gambling benefits than I have taken writer workshops - but I have absolutely no interest in joining him on one of his adventures - yet we still catchup on a group Zoom once a month. My wife likes getting massages. If I join her going to a spa, I patiently wait in the lobby reading a book - massages are not at all relaxing to me! My point is what’s important to you is not going to be important to those you care about and it’s okay because what they care about - you also couldn’t care less.
I hope this helps! And if you write a story you can’t share with those you love the most, you’re not alone and I hope it helps others.
- Sincerely, Mr. Writer.
As a longtime husband, I think this about my wife’s concerns, my kids’ concerns, most of my male and female colleagues’ concerns, half my kids’ friends’ concerns, a handful of strangers’ concerns, and definitely one or two internet friends’ concerns. Ergo: Dear Mr. Writer.
I paraphrase, probably badly, and I'm not certain the source of the quote I barely remember.
If you're compelled to write, write. If someone takes it personally, let them. Chances are, that person has a very distorted view of you anyway.
Im only speaking from my own experience, but abusive parents can't recall any abuses because it doesnt jive with the delusion that they are decent people. Recalling abuses would shatter their identity and result in a psychotic break. Also, they did the best they could with what they had. Im the only one responsible for me today, and its been that way for a long time.
This is a tough one; one which I struggle with myself. I mean, I agree with Dan’s comment about which genre are you trying to write and you must choose—though I’ll admit that’s harder than it sounds. I prefer fiction to memoir, but then again, as Wil pointed out, what if by sharing your struggle, you help someone else?
As for IBNIICWAGI’s asking the question in the first place, is the husband drinking more than she would like or is he an alcoholic? Because with an alcoholic, he or she often hides their drinking (or tries to). So the person you are supposed to trust to go to for advice and questions becomes the person who is telling you they are running to the store real quick to get a loaf of bread, and then two or four or eight hours later (or maybe not at all!) they are still not back. And this happens over and over again, and then when they are home, there’s this underlying feeling that they just itching sneak away to do the very thing they are hiding from you, which if you’ve ever experienced this, is an insane kind of maddening.
And it hurts, yes, but after however many years of this pattern, it probably generates this snowball of anger and anxiety--and for a writer, a special kind of hell in terms of writer’s block, and I guess what I’m getting at is I think it’s a fair question. And yeah, maybe she does want to punch him sometimes. Maybe she wants to kick him in the dick for being man enough to admit he has a problem but then never following through to get help with it again and again and maybe IBNIICWAGI is lonely. More lonely than she’s ever fucking been because who can she even talk to except for strangers on the internet?
Wil, I think you hit it on the head it with this: “by naming a dread - I can catch it, reduce its power, and that now named, the troubling thought is less out of control, the troubling thought becomes manageable.” I think this is maybe why I write, why I’ve always written, why many of us do.
Myself, I would stick with fiction, but memoir is certainly easier to bleed out sometimes. But for publication? I'm a scaredy cat. For me, metaphors is the safest bet--best of both worlds. You might have to force the metaphors at first, maybe later they will come more naturally, or maybe the practice of it will simply exhaust the topic and give you some peace, but it sounds like IBNIICWAGI is trapped either way, and the only way out is to write it, whatever the route...