What is ‘Land’ about?
Originally published on my ko-fi page as subscriber-only post on August 27
I was talking to a fellow author, Tessa Hastjartanto today, when it struck me. Children is the question; Land is the answer.
My cPTSD therapy has ended three weeks ago. Since then, I have been doing things that have been nowhere near my reach (“comfort zone” LOLOLOL) for, often, six years. Today, for instance, I went out to lunch with Tessa, unaccompanied, at an actual cafe, and it was our first ever 3D meeting. So, technically she also counted as semi-stranger. If you look at me, you probably don’t see someone who hasn’t been able to enter a supermarket for five years.
Children has been my subconscious writing down, in great detail, the memories I have repressed. (You don’t know when you repress your memories, thought I’d mention that. Repressed memories are repressed.) I used to laugh when people told me it was so dark, because I was aware it was very autobiographical. Land is less dark, or rather less often/continuously dark, but I also have all those memories back. Which is why Children took me 29 almost complete rewrites, and Land is on draft 14 – if you exclude the drafts written 4/3/2 years ago when my brain suddenly had a word vomit, it’s actually on its sixth. And as my editor told me, the differences between 5th and 6th (green vs red on the graph) are mostly words or phrases. [In the meantime, the book has been finished and sent to the proofreader – BL]
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