Underpainting Yourself into Your Work

We can’t escape it. Somehow bits of ourselves worm and wheedle themselves into everything we write, even without our knowledge. Our opinions and views, our history, our emotional hang ups. The boy we pined for. (You know who you are, Zach.) The sibling who drove us crazy. (My brother loved to take my book and throw it across a room, thereby losing my page. Awesome.) That embarrassing moment in high school that we never quite got over. (Mind your own business.) All of who we are becomes fodder for our writing.

The most invasive example I have is revealed when I write about family dynamics. My father walked away when I was a child, and I went through a series of stepfathers in his wake. My mother – a hardworking waitress – worked long hours on her feet to keep the four of us kids with a roof over our head. My siblings and I have a kind of bond like soldiers who’ve been through war together – few can relate to a house like the one we grew up in. What is the impact of this on my writing?

Hardworking waitresses appear in my stories frequently. The bond I had with my siblings – we raised each other – appears in the siblings I write. As for fathers? At first, they were always absent with no redeeming qualities at all. Then, I wrote my Master’s Project about a dying father trying to connect with the daughter he abandoned. I dug up all those ugly emotions and put them to page. To rave reviews, I might add. (I received Honors on my project.)

My latest work features a father who abandoned his daughter, but is trying to repair the relationship. He becomes a good father, but it’s not an easy path for him or the daughter. What can I say? I’m evolving.

What parts of you make it into your writing with the highest frequency?