James Pennebaker

My book is out there in the world being read by a couple of people.  Not publishers or editors, just lay people I guess you'd say.  I did get a nice rejection from the agent Rita Rosenkrantz. I have a couple of new projects planned, either start on a second book or do a short story based on the War Years in Amagansett; something I'd like to do.

I'm speaking here as a legitimate writer which I am but only in my own mind, not according to the reality therapy of having made money at it.

Today I'm depressed. Don't tell anyone In Recovery about this. I know what they'll tell me.  Yes, I am being selfish and self-centered. It's what I always planned to do with my retirement. You show me yours, and I'll decide whether I think you've come up with a better plan. If it includes Bridge, Golf, or Fishing, you lose. Ditto reading Trade Publications.

As for the reason I'm depressed. I'm reading Jim Pennebaker's, [Can I call you Jim, Jim?] book The Secret Life of Pronouns.  I heard about it through Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, and also through reading Barbara Oakley. Pennebaker did research on writing therapy; having people write about trauma, in short bursts, repeatedly. I decided to write about an episode of abuse when I was pre-adolescent. So I wrote a short piece, a page, and let it sit.  Figured I'd read a little more Pennebaker and then re-look at it. So, for the first day of sitting on it, I'm feeling that low grade depression that I've become so used to not having. This is real human Guinea Pig stuff. Also though, it's about tweaking some future writing.  ....Three specific episodes of abuse stand out in my memory of my childhood, including my High School years. The last one, which I don't mind talking about here in this format, was probably not abuse but more simply trauma, when I was punched in the face on the school bus, hit my head on the steel corner of one of the bus seats, and had a severe concussion.

Years later, I read, in a feature in Harper's Magazine that was a regular feature some thirty years ago, about the connection between concussion and alcoholic Blackouts. (In younger days I was a severe blackout drinker.)

What I find interesting as I mull this experiment over, this idea of revisiting a couple of specific, brief, but unappetizing moments in my past is that, even being a professional oral historian and contentedly autobiographical wool-gatherer, it's never occurred to me to do this particular kind of 'multiples of instant replay' experiment. [I just added that "multiples" terminology on my own...]  So, depressing or not, I'll continue to sit on it for the time being, and let you know if anything comes of it.

Three years later.....decided it was a bad idea.