Prologue
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"Write what you know."
That is what my creative writing professor said to my class in my first year of University. I never forgot that piece of advice, even when I had to drop out of University due to bouts of depression and a severe lack of focus. All thanks to the trauma from the impact of childhood sexual abuse. Even in adulthood, my stepfather and that babysitter were still stealing important things from me. Deep down on the inside, I had a story to tell, a story I needed to write, but it would take me until my mid-forties to finally sit down and write. It would take spontaneously starting a podcast one day to motivate me to just sit down and write after starting and stopping so many times. Committing to writing and producing an episode a week for my small but growing podcast audience became the catalyst for writing the memoirs I always wanted to write. It was exciting because week after week, I would write down my story, narrate it through my podcast, and then add those pages I had written for my podcast to pages in my manuscript. Memories to be elaborated on as I thought about my journey towards healing at that stage in my life. Writing my book required this intimate process of thinking about specific moments in my past, at different stages in my life, for days after publishing the latest episode of my podcast. It required reading through my diaries from my teenage years, revisiting my twenties in journals, and the foolish choices I made in romantic relationships. It required an honest look at the pain and the shame I endured to procure a tiny sliver of justice in court against my stepfather. Reading those court transcripts out loud on a couple episodes of my podcast and then sharing them in my book was not easy. But it was all a part of the process that slowly brought a rough draft of my manuscript (at a more mature stage) to life. It was unlike prior moments in my life when I attempted to write my book and give it a shocking title. Emotionally, I had a lot of growing up to do back then before I could ever sit down and write my life story from a place of genuine understanding and true unconditional love.
**** To read more stay tuned for my upcoming book "When They Say ..."
Visit: www.intheclosetproductions.com to learn more.
