I Need Blue

TJ: Penned Resilience, Crafting Healing Narratives from Life's Trials

• Jennifer Lee/TJ • Season 4 • Episode 4

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This episode explores the therapeutic power of writing trauma with the author and writing coach TJ from Virginia. Tj's  compelling work, "Dating Silky Maxwell,"  brings to life a chorus of passionate, damaged characters who leave their pasts behind and reinvent themselves until their mistakes no longer define them.

During this episode we delve into the silent strength of writing, especially for those not ready to vocalize their truths.

Embarking on the writing journey mirrors navigating an uncharted path. This discussion unveils the intricate process of crafting a short story collection, addressing revisions, rejections, and the authenticity breathed into fiction.

Tj's insights highlight the vital role of a writing coach in providing emotional support and practical wisdom, urging writers to infuse creativity into their daily lives.

Connect with  TJ: https://www.tjbutlerauthor.com/dating-silky-maxwell-1

To order Dating Silky Maxwell on Amazon:
https://www.tjbutlerauthor.com/

Connect with Jen:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ineedbluepodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/needbluepodcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp1q8SfA_hEXRJ4EaizlW8Q
Website: https://ineedblue.net/

The background music is written, performed and produced exclusively by Char Good.
https://chargood.com/home

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Jennifer:

Everyone has a story. They just don't always have a place to share it. Music. Welcome to the I Need Blue podcast. This is Shar Good and I am honored to introduce Jennifer Lee, author, life coach and host of today's show on the I Need Blue podcast.

TJ:

MUSIC.

Jennifer:

Thank you for that warm introduction, shar, and welcome to I Need Blue, the podcast about to take you on an extraordinary journey where profound narratives come to life, one captivating episode at a time. I'm your host, jennifer Lee, and I founded this podcast because I know there is healing and sharing. Each story you will hear shared on this podcast is a testament to our collective strength, innate ability to transform in the incredible power of healing. Please remember you are never alone. Please visit and share my website with those seeking connection and inspiration wwwineedbluenet. Thank you, shar Good, for composing and performing the introduction medley for I Need Blue. You can find information about Shar on her website, wwwshargoodcom.

Jennifer:

Before starting today's episode, I must provide a trigger warning. I Need Blue features graphic themes, including, but not limited to, violence, abuse and murder, and may not be suitable for all listeners. Please take care of yourself and don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it. Now let's get started with today's story. There are different ways to share your trauma. For instance, I founded a podcast, offer personal life coaching and wrote a book.

Jennifer:

Everyone experiences their healing journey in their own way. My guest today found writing to be the healing journey she needed Once she permitted herself to write. The healing was profound. She needed to help others put pen to paper. Today, we are going to focus on how to write your trauma. Only 3% of writers who start a novel finish it. Tiffany helps aspiring writers put pen to paper and keep the process going. She is an author living in Virginia with her husband and dog. She enjoys helping writers find their voice, tell their stories and guide those who want to begin. Her short story collection, dating Silky Maxwell, is available online at your favorite bookseller. Tiffany, thank you for being my esteemed guest today and welcome to the I Need Blue podcast.

TJ:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to share my story and help writers and just people listening who are interested in it.

Jennifer:

Absolutely. And before I hit the record button, you and I were kind of chatting about the importance of writing For some. They're not quite ready to put their voice behind their story. They may never be ready, but putting it on paper is a great way to sort out all of those thoughts that are going through your head and create organization out of. For some is this absolute chaos. When did you realize you needed to write a book?

TJ:

I was one of those kids that said I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, but I didn't keep on writing. I dropped that and went along in my life and had jobs and relationships and a couple years ago, I realized that I needed to start writing and I wasn't sure what did it. I just thought, after not writing for years, I wrote a little bit in college and you know I'm in my late 40s, and so this really came to me later in life. But I thought, you know, I have some stories to tell. So I started writing what's called flash fiction, which is little stories that are a thousand words or less. Then I thought, you know, oh, I really have something here.

TJ:

I had some positive feedback and I estranged myself from my mother in 2017 and it was big, big feelings because I was just getting into writing seriously as an adult, with all my life experience and my education, whereas you know school and also life education, and so the two kind of came together, realizing that you know, I had stories to tell and I did not want to sit down and write a memoir because, you know, I thought about you know who's gonna read it, and also the big thing was. I don't want to focus on the things that happen to me and put them down on pen and paper and then have someone read it and judge my lived experience. So I thought, if I'm gonna do something with this, I can tell my stories in fiction. I worked out some personal issues on the page and I kept writing and, through the magic of how the universe works, I now have a short story collection that is out.

Jennifer:

That is awesome, and you said something that I wasn't familiar with Flash fiction. So is your current book? Does it fit in that category of flash fiction, where it's under a thousand words, or does each story within your book fit into that category?

TJ:

I started writing flash fiction as a way to kind of get my arms around. You know, here's a container that you can put a story in. My short stories are typical short story length but when I was starting out as a writer it was really daunting to think that I might have to write 20 pages. But the shorter form they're called micro if you're, you know, 300, 500, 700 words, and then they're called flash when they're around a thousand.

TJ:

The short form as a legitimate, recognized form, allowed me to feel like I was writing and not just scribbling down some stuff but really writing, and I didn't have to tell huge stories. You know, 500 words is about a page and if you think about somebody just starting out saying I want to tell stories, I want to write, I want to put something on the page, I'm not sure what, knowing that you know somebody's giving you permission, knowing that it's okay to write a scene in 500 words, you know you, a valid story is what happened that one time at Thanksgiving at the dinner table. What happened to you that one time? Your mother, something, something, something.

TJ:

And not having to describe everything, you don't even have to write conversation, you just tell a little anecdote, you just tell you know what happened then and there, and having the freedom to say I can make this as shortest to paragraphs or I can keep going and going until I have some pages, it really allowed me to figure out what I was doing on the page. Because if I had come into this thinking, oh okay, well, writers write novels, or writers write, you know, articles in the New York Times and writers do all of these very fancy things, I'm just a regular person. I don't know if I would have kept with it, but embracing the short form allowed me to get good enough that I was comfortable writing short stories and writing longer things and then sending them to people and then getting them published, which is a whole different story.

Jennifer:

You talked about giving yourself permission. Did somebody give you permission to write these things down? Or was it yourself getting to a point in your healing journey where you said I'm giving myself permission?

TJ:

It didn't really have permission as much as a compulsion. I wrote these two pieces, two extreme childhood situations, and I wrote these stories in what's called second person. Second person is where you say you, whereas first person is I did something, and third person is we, they, he, she did something. So writing in second person takes me, takes the writer out of it, because you will say you opened the door slowly, you looked inside the room and saw something Writing it as you makes it the reader, and that's not a very popular form. But I wrote these two really traumatic things in second person. I haven't reread them, but it allowed me to kind of like break the seal, I guess.

TJ:

And then I started writing a little more. I. So I I didn't necessarily have permission, as much as figuring it out. But in talking to newer writers I know that so many people feel intimidated or they say, oh well, I'm not really a writer. Well, yes, you are. If you are writing, if you want to write, yes, you can be a writer, you are a writer. I joined a local writers group that met at an organic market every other week and that kind of got me started. And so now, with writing groups being on Zoom and in person. It is not difficult to find a writing group and join and connect with other writers.

Jennifer:

Right. So after you wrote those two short stories in second person using the word you, how did you feel afterwards?

TJ:

Super traumatized. So I sent one in and I published it in a literary journal, which is a format that anybody can send in their work to literary journals and be published. And I used a different name to submit it. And when they told me it was published, I was excited because I got some published work and I'm not sure why I sent it in, but I just wanted to kind of put it out there. And then when I heard from the journal that it was released, I went to the website and I read maybe two sentences and closed. I just closed my laptop screen and I thought you know, I don't want to read that. I've put it out there. I have.

TJ:

I've taken the first step as a writer now kind of ripping the bandaid off. Now let me try to explore some different things. Then it kind of happened that I was starting to write about bad mothers and writing about daughters who had to find their way in the world, and my short story collection has a lot of bad mothers and a lot of women who are making choices based on the tools that they have, and not all of those tools are enough. That was kind of my start for, like you know, how did I feel not so great. But how did I feel later, when I was not writing about the most raw unhealed wound possible? Much better about myself.

Jennifer:

Right, because I wanted to go back to where you said you felt super traumatized, because there are those listening who, after listening to you, may decide to write and also may feel super traumatized. So I wanted you to let them know your journey of, even though you felt these intense emotions, what did you do to work through them? Did you seek help at that time or was continuing to write the therapy that you needed? So that's a really interesting question.

TJ:

The two early pieces were just exploring writing and exploring trauma. I had very recently estranged myself from my mother, so that brought up, you know, decades of really hard emotional things to deal with. And when I realized that I wanted to tell my truth but I didn't want to do that to myself again and I didn't want to write a memoir I realized that I could take situations from my life and fictionalize them. So many trauma survivors, we have normalized our experiences so we can go through and if you meet with a new therapist or if you get into a new relationship or you're, you know, meeting somebody new and kind of giving your bite sized life history. We have these bullet points that we just go through Because as trauma survivors we have possibly told these things to therapists or close friends or relationships and so in normalizing our trauma we have kind of downplayed it, whereas we might hear someone else's trauma and feel like our heart goes out to them, you know, because of what they've been through, not realizing that someone else is thinking the same thing about our trauma. I wanted to tell my stories but I wasn't really sure how to do it in fiction and I have many memoir pieces in my stories. But the thing that I did was the body of work is kind of me controlling the trauma narrative. My stories are mostly from women's point of view. I gave these women agency at a time in situations when I was powerless, and I gave them a voice when I had none. That allowed me to control the trauma narrative.

TJ:

I have one story that outlines a situation, my life story, essentially living with my mother before she gave up custody and put me in foster care at 13. But the main character in that story is a man and myself, as the bad seed of the family, I made that his little sister. So by changing up the details and giving them completely different arc, I was able to tell my story. Because I'm a stranger from my mother, I don't necessarily have to worry about her reading it, which most people don't have that thing.

TJ:

I would say that it's best for writers to feel like they can write freely, and that means changing characters, sexes, that means blending three different people into one character. That means fictionalizing the details so that nobody says, hey, you're writing about me. Many people successfully write memoirs and they show their family members the stories to get permission Others who may be on the outs with their families and don't have as good relationships. They just write their truth. That can be good or bad, or maybe we just write and it's not to be published. Maybe the goal is to write for the joy of it but not send it out into the world. Just get our story on paper.

Jennifer:

Right, I have a ton of poems that are in a folder. That is where they stay and I'm okay with that. They were healing at the time. I don't feel I have to go back and read them. Nothing like that. You know earlier when you talked about the short stories, you don't have to be as descriptive. Sometimes less detail gives the reader the opportunity to use their imagination but then also recall a situation that relates to them. So rather than saying I went to a beach with purple sand, yada yada, yada, yada, yada yada, when you just say the beach. Now they can go back to their memory of going to the beach and bring themselves a little more into the story and the understanding, maybe, of what that character was going through. Do you agree with that thought process?

TJ:

Absolutely so. Stephen King wrote this really powerful book called On Writing and it is part memoir, part his writing philosophy, and I recommend that everybody read it. It's a quick read and it's just great. So one of the things he says oh my gosh, I hope it is in this book, but that's a good book anyway. So he says that rather than describing a character by saying they had here's their hair color and eye color and here's their shape and their nose was big and their hands were hairy, rather than saying that he would say something like she looked like the kind of woman that shopped at thrift stores.

TJ:

And everybody who's listening has now just decided what that woman looks like. For me, because I do a lot of secondhand shopping, I'm like, oh, she's cool. And then some people who maybe have never been into a thrift shop, they might think, oh, she looks some way. And so describing a character with those simple words looks like they shop at thrift stores that speaks volumes. When we are describing a room, you don't need to describe every single thing in there. If you want to let your readers know that the person has an interest in music, you can skip everything but point out that they had a piano in the room and there was framed art on the wall with music notes. And right there we know that person inhabits a room that supports their musical interest. Without going into any detail about the couch and the carpet and the drapes and all that stuff, Okay, so that is amazing.

Jennifer:

I'm so glad you shared the examples because I too am a thrift shopper, and more so when I was younger is I wanted to look nice, but I couldn't afford to shop off the rack. Yeah, same, yes, uh-huh, and that was for me thrift. There weren't. Well, guess, I looked like I shopped at thrift. But you can find a really great stuff at the thrift store, I'm telling you. But when you said that, yeah, there's a natural inclination of what someone would look like, perceptions and whatnot, but we can defy that perception, right, of course I like when you talked about describing characters, for me, being a memoir, I changed names.

Jennifer:

There really isn't much description in my characters, also for legality reasons, because I did not have permission to write about the other characters in my book. But when I reached out to a lawyer, he said as long as you don't give a lot of distinguishing features, nobody's going to know who you're talking about. And nobody does. The average reader has no idea who I'm talking about. They have the name of the character and that's it. There's nothing else. How long did it take you to write your book?

TJ:

Okay, so I finished this collection. When I say finished, I'm doing air quotes finished the collection in 2020. And along the way, I went through two agents. I had a small press contract that I pulled. I wrote a novel that's in the dumpster, and so when I ended up with this contract that has now just been published from, in the publication process I revised my every story again. So to start with saying, here's a completed short story collection longer than a year, and then it went through a number of revisions.

TJ:

Short stories are a thing, because I have 11 of them and I had to come up with 11 different worlds. When I am in the mindset of being a writer, I can kind of do that, but then I can't switch gears to being a photographer. I have to focus on one thing at a time, but writing a book takes a long time. If you can knock out a book in a year, that might not be your best work. Speed is not of the essence. There is a thing in November called NaNoWriMo, which is National Write a Novel Month, and people try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. That is hard to do, and then it takes, you know, months and months and months of revision to get it right. It's not necessarily the time because we have as just citizens of the world. We have families, we have jobs, we have other things. We want to sometimes watch YouTube rather than sit down and write. Writing is a commitment. Writing is for me. Writing is really hard, but I'll tell you what not writing is harder, so it's not necessarily the calendar time that it takes to write the book. It is the time that you can take from your life to do this thing. So I work part-time as a writing coach and I'm not reading people's writing. I'm working more as a writer's therapist. There's a lot of junk on social media garbage about who is and who is not a valid writer.

TJ:

The writing process is not all your fingers typing words on a keyboard. The writing process is going for a walk and working out plot points, going for a drive. You know how we always get the greatest ideas when we're in the shower or when we're washing dishes. It's a muscle memory that your body goes into that puts your brain in a creative state While you are, you know, walking your dog and you have to pull out your phone and say, hey, google, send an email and then do your plot point. Those are all part of the writing process. It's part of the writing process when you, before you fall asleep, think of a crazy thing that you have to put in your story and you send yourself this email and when you wake up it's like snails with shirts eating waffles and you're like wait a minute, that was the best idea last night. What does it mean? So, rather than the time it takes, it is however long it takes until it's done, really Right.

Jennifer:

To add to that, I started writing my dating abuse story 17 years ago. Six years ago, I ripped it all up, thinking that that was prohibiting me from healing which was not the case and so I picked my pen back up and became intentional. For me, it was about being intentional, and some could describe that as just allocating the time, dedicating yourself to that, and in a busy world that can be hard to do. But I love when you talk about how we're allocating time for YouTube, for Facebook, for Instagram.

Jennifer:

Imagine if you just took half of the time that you spent scrolling through your phone and dedicated that to writing something, even if it's just journaling. It's amazing what comes out of journaling. Then you would realize that writing isn't quite as hard as you thought. I was going to ask you to basically dig into what you do to help others as a writing coach. I want to give you an opportunity to elaborate a little bit more on that how people can contact you, and if there was something else you wanted to talk about that I missed, I definitely want to get that in here as well.

TJ:

So I take clients who need help not with their actual words, but just with a writing process in general. This can be an accountability buddy. I can be a cheerleader when you say I'm going to write a chapter by the next time we talk and then you know that you told me this so you're going to have to have it done. There's a lot of emotion wrapped up when we are telling our stories. I've been through a lot. I was in foster care. I aged out of foster care without any family support. I came from a home with domestic violence and alcoholism. So I have seen a lot and knowing with my experiences, I'm a good ear to listen when writers are trying to process some of their things and write about them. My website is tjbutlerauthorcom and on that website that's kind of everything about me. I have a writing workshop that I teach on how to publish, whether that is in literary journals or whether you are interested in getting an agent and a big fancy contract or even a small press contract or self-publishing.

TJ:

One of the things about writing that I strongly believe in is being a good literary citizen. I spend a lot of time on social media, not scrolling through dog videos, but looking at writers and writing organizations. I've curated my social media feeds so that there's no politics, just a couple of animal pages and all kinds of writing resources and writers. And when I have clients, that I get to know their needs, I see something come across, an opportunity or something for them, and I just send them a text message.

TJ:

I just recently got a former client published in a very, very long-standing journal because I saw the opportunity and knew she had some stuff and I said, hey, here's this thing, send it in. So I do my sessions a month-long package of weekly calls. Occasionally, after one or two sessions, they will drop out because they realize that it doesn't make you a writer if you pay a writing coach. It makes you a writer when you write. And these people just have realized that I just don't have time to do it and maybe I'm going to do it on my own or maybe I'm just not going to do it.

TJ:

I will do one call with people for free just to assess your situation. I'm not out for money. I'm out to help people who want to be writers, because I got some enormous help when I started out and I want to pay it forward. Writing has been the single most stressful thing I have done to myself on purpose, and I know that for other writers. So if you go to my website, tjbutlerauthorcom, my short story collection is available there through any online reseller, but you'll get to see a little book trailer and you'll get to read about the characters that I have and learn a little bit about me.

Jennifer:

I will put that link in the show notes.

TJ:

I would like to add to everybody who's contemplating writing get out your favorite notepad on your phone, your laptop, an old fashioned notebook and a pen and write two paragraphs, and if you don't know what to write about, you start typing over and over again. I don't know what to write Instead of timer for 11 minutes, and by the time 11 minutes have gone by, you will know what to write, and then you can keep writing or you can get up and try it again tomorrow.

Jennifer:

Great advice. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing.

TJ:

Thank you so very much for having me today.

Jennifer:

Absolutely, TJ. It has been my pleasure. Thank you all for listening. This is Jennifer Lee with the I Need Blue podcast. To find everything you ever wanted to learn about I Need Blue, visit my website, wwwineedbluenet, and always remember you are stronger than you think. Until next time.

TJ:

Bye.