Confession

Okay, already…it’s true to an extent.

I am probably writing more of myself in to my novels than I mean to.

I mean, this passage is practically ripped from my own journal:

He had once watched ants an entire afternoon as they built their anthill. As they mined underground, emerging with tiny rocks, returning to dig some more, he had wondered what they were up to under there. He began to see patterns in their placement of rocks they extracted, suggesting underground routes through strata of dirt.

It’s not all a bunch of nature observations.

I don’t want to give away too much of the upcoming book, but here’s another passage from it that’s darn-near autobiographical:

She found him out on a patio one afternoon, gazing up at a tree. She watched him, just standing there, for what seemed like forever. On her approach, he hushed her and pointed at a low-hanging branch. Dangling from it, just out of their reach, was a chrysalis with an emerging butterfly. She started to remark on it two or three times, but he shhhhhed her. They watched the butterfly unfold her wings and articulate her legs. They watched the wings dry and flutter in the breeze. He smiled at her just then, a childish smile of wonder and glee, something she had never quite seen on him before or since, a smile she cherished. He waggled his eyebrows, and then, as if on cue, the butterfly took flight.

Don’t judge.

That. Judgement…that’s what probably drives and crucifies my main character (okay, and sometimes me) more than anything. In the book, he’s battling himself, as we all are, but more, he’s battling what he worries his daughter will think of him. I hope I’ve left behind something my kids will appreciate and grow from, even after every rug is lifted and every secret revealed.

I’ve read a lot of autobiographical criticism of authors’ works, and I don’t think I’m alone in finding myself in the pages and passages I write. I hope I’m not just using it all as therapy, but then, there’s nothing wrong with that, either. I hope there’s an entertaining yarn there to tug at, too.