WHO DO YOU WRITE FOR?

My Uber driver asked me if I was going to work.

“No,” I said. “I work from home.”

And of course then came the inevitable question: what sort of work do you do?

I explained I was a journalist and writer and my novel was about to come out.

“Oh, so do you write to please the readers or yourself?” he asked.

I thought that was an odd sort of question, after all how on earth can you please all the readers all the time? I answered, to please myself.

“Well, if you want to make money you have to please the readers,” he said.

I don’t think you can write fiction with that aim in mind. You have to write what you must write, what you feel you HAVE to write, what is affecting you deeply and filling up your waking hours (and your non-waking ones most of the time). I’m still mulling over his words although at the time I did not find them particularly useful.

Anyway, my copies of Whale Rock have finally arrived. And they’re looking good. The hard work so far has paid off.  IndieMosh has done a fantastic job, very efficient and helpful the whole way through the process. And I love the cover design by Ally Mosher.

My story began many, many years ago when I was living and reporting from Nicaragua, covering the Sandinista revolution in the mid-1980s, where I heard a rumour about a military hospital using unusual methods to treat soldiers for what was then known as war neurosis. The term PTSD hadn’t yet been universally adopted.

I had become interested in the subject of trauma, or in this case, the psychological effects of war when meeting former soldiers there who were suffering from it. I interviewed Auxiladora Marenco, a Nicaraguan psychotherapist, who explained it wasn’t a topic that the Sandinistas wanted to embrace. They wanted people to believe that none of their soldiers would be traumatised for they were fighting for the fatherland. 

I wanted to tell some of this story in my novel as a series of traumatic flashbacks experienced by Rafael, a Nicaraguan former soldier who has lived in Australia for more than 20 years.

Here I have witnessed the impact of the traumatic policies that led to the Stolen Generations, those who were taken away from their parents, and their children and grandchildren. My character, Colin, is based on the people I know and love.

Another character, Vesna, has also had her own share of trauma, covering the war in Kosovo while Shannon too is shattered  by her grief. 

It has been said that grief and trauma are powerful triggers of character-based flashbacks, and a situation, sight or smell might trigger suppressed memories of the past.

We have come to know much more about this phenomenon since the Vietnam War, and the willingness of veterans to later speak out about their memories. Perhaps earlier veterans may have been less forthcoming for cultural reasons. (I know for example that it took a long while and an interview with a PhD candidate for my father to talk about the psychological effects of his war experience.) 

The willingness of a new generation of veterans to talk may have given non-combatants a new understanding of an old phenomenon and so contributed to its wider exploitation in fiction.

I am presently enjoying the writing of famous American author JD Salinger, who  was heavily influenced by his own war experience, which informs his short stories, in particular For Esme – with Love and Squalor, and A Perfect Day for Bananafish.   His descriptions of the soldiers who are obviously suffering PTSD are chillingly brilliant. But he also uses humour in the conversations with Esme and others.

People who have gone through these experiences often have the best senses of humour – even if dark and often cynical – and compassion for their fellow beings. I certainly found that when I interviewed women (and their partners) who have had stillbirths. They have deeply inspired me to write the intertwining stories that form Whale Rock.

Googling Salinger I discovered that he apparently also helped to introduce the modern concept of “selling out”.  According to one writer, to Salinger, selling out, or abusing a talent to receive money is one of the worst sins an artist can commit. So take that, Uber driver.