Anna Vaught's Blog

E is for energy (or not)

A very short post tonight as I’m not feeling too well, physically and had various jabs today, too!

Energy. I had a range of things to say here. First, if you are naturally energetic and enthusiastic, promise me that you won’t let anyone crush that. Occasionally, it happens and it can set you back. As firmly as you can, stay true to you; to that.

Then, about pushing through when your energies, physical, mental, both, are low. Sometimes – this is the real world for us- we will be tired and not in a position to rest. But even then, reclaim what you can, even if it’s just a few moments and never feel guilty for being low in energy because, do you know, rest is needed and does not need to be earned.

Something else. The amount of energy you have is a precious commodity so we can make choices about where it goes. If someone drains the very life out of you, it is okay to avoid or limit contact with that person; to make yourself available. Think, too, about what gives you joy, however daft, however tiny: it is unique to you. Such things are energising; they are good for me and for us.

Right now, though, I am a battery running down and I shall be back tomorrow.

With love,

Bookworm. xxx

In my life I have several periods of depression and I could not see beyond it. My experience is that – reminder I am not a medical professional and I’m a Doctor of Creative Writing! – sadness and depression may be confused. I have found that when you are sad you can still have joy alongside it, but in depression it is through a glass darkly. Perhaps it’s different for you. Depression, for me, involved intense feelings that were just awful and I often felt deeply isolated, stressed and numb. I think periods of my childhood and adolescence were spent in depression too, and I knew it wasn’t right because I had felt happiness. This was the impact of events within the family home and the sense that no-one, anywhere, would believe. I still get snatches of that feeling now – but it fades.

Depression has a way of knocking you out and it also lies; it says, you will never get better: this is not recoverable. It’s an awful thing, but if you are managing it, know how common it is too. I am not, for the purposes of this blog and because I am not qualified to say, going to write anything about medicines or therapies, because that is not my place. I AM going to tell you about a book that has been my companion for a many a year. It’s by the late Australian psychologist Dorothy Rowe, who remains a bit of a heroine for me. I have been told by some that she is rather old fashioned, but I have been in and out of the system for years and I can tell you that I STILL find fresh insights and comfort from her work. Rowe was always particularly interested in how we create meaning and in this book, below, she explains that just as you created meaning through a series of pictures of the world, so you can create new meaning and different understandings. Isn’t it simple? That takes work, but, hearing it for the first time, it’s like soft rain on a dry soul. Here:

I have always adored Rowe’s warm and forthright style and her range of literary examples, which appeal to a bookworm like me and I encourage you to have a look at the book.

Gradually, over time, I have had fewer and fewer periods of depression because I have learned to think and behave differently and my, it has not been easy. But I leave you with a few things.

The first is that, perhaps, how you are feeling is a reasonable response to the life you are not living not being right for you. In my case, I had so many unhelpful thought patterns ingested because of what was repeatedly said to me about myself, myself and others’ view of me, and what I was capable of – either nothing or only bad things – that I needed to unlearn that this was not the whole of the world, but what I had been taught. I recall a very particular day when the scales dropped from my eyes and actually thinking how fresh and bright the colours around me were. I cried and cried with relief. I had to deconstruct that monolith inside me so I could begin to live a life that was right – or better – for me.

Now I want to say, please do not be ashamed and furthermore to reiterate that you are far from alone. I hope from this place can come new understanding and new life for you. I know that this has been the case for me.

Finally, there is work to be done and how long that takes is unique to the individual. I said above that depression lies – it says you’re no good and this will never end. It is not so.

I have so much to say on this topic, but all my posts in the alphabet need to be brief.

With all my love and with encouragements,

Anna.

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Hello my lovelies and let me share the simplest idea with you.

I WAS thinking of writing about C for chips, but maybe another day. Comfort. I have found that, in difficult situations or just as part of caring for me, it’s helpful to attend to comfort. I know that is going to vary because you may be living with chronic pain or illness, so I suppose I need to qualify what I write with explaining that my approach provides optimal conditions for me. Also, I want to say something about things that are comforting, as well as approach the word ‘comfort’.

So, I have a very bright crochet blanket that I like too have with me, where it’s possible. I have it because a kind person made it especially for me when I was at an absolute low. I put it over my legs and feet. I have a little spiky ball which I enjoy rolling on the soles of my feet, and, since my teens, I’ve invariably had a little bottle of lavender oil with me or maybe a tissue with a few drops of lavender on it. I also have a pot of tiger balm with me, which seems to last for years. These are things for being at home but also travel or being elsewhere. If I am feeling a bit nervous, I do enjoy using earplugs – I like the ones made by Loop. You can get ones that block out sound and ones that act more as a filter. An eye mask if I need to withdraw for a bit. These are all things that bring me back to myself a bit and give me a feeling that I am looking after myself, but it doesn’t matter what those things are; it’s a question of what they afford you.

Things that are comforting.

I have pictures of my cats on my phone and roses I grew. It doesn’t matter what the images are of, because it’s whatever brings you comfort. I am a massive bookworm, so I am frequently comforted by books insofar as I become really absorbed by them. I like to read aloud to myself if the language is particularly beautiful and quite frequently read poetry aloud: you can feel it too. I think romance with a happy ending is a wonderfully cheering thing to read. It’s not usually my first thing, but there are times when that’s what I want to read, for escapism and soothing. Flowers, herbs, the sea, birdsong: keep noticing and taking it in.

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More broadly for feeling comforted, I have been training myself to really look at and notice things. To spend time on doing small things for myself, and to self soothe. Breathing well is grand, but because I manage real and scary health things and because of other things in my life, I have adopted a habit of putting my hand on my heart and saying a comforting phrase. Yes, I know it probably sounds a bit naff, but it works for me.

There’s a thing you sometimes hear about letting the good land. Our brains have an entirely understandable negativity bias, because that’s been necessary from an evolutionary point of view. One thing that I find comforting is that there’s work we can do. Our neurons are interesting little guys which can, with a bit of encouragement, start firing about different things. That’s brain plasticity and there is much information out there about this. Psychologist Rick Hanson whom I’ve mentioned before has a lot of free resources here and I suggests you subscribe to the weekly JOT – just one thing – newsletter. Here’s the website. https://rickhanson.com/what-to-do-when-the-bottom-falls-out/? May it bring you comfort.

At the heart of everything I have written is the simple practice of caring about yourself in the first place. Not in an egotistic and self-indulgent sort of way; not by embracing toxic positivity which is, of course, toxic. Just by introducing and doing my best to sustain things that offer my body comfort and which are comforting.

I hope you can do that for you.

All my love,

Anna.

The letter B

The first thing that came to mind for B was actually…be. Let’s go with that, shall we?

Sometimes everything hurts and, because we are being realistic, the pain of some experience has to be tolerated, it has to be felt and, to a certain extent, and step by step, it has to be assimilated. In that context – but perhaps really in all, for which read on – some days all you have to do is just be. On that day, just have a day. There are some days where you are so tired and in my experience it’s good for you not to look for solutions on some days if this is a possibility you can afford.

Just be, to the extent you can be, quietly, in the middle of your own life and experience. I think this is a bedfellow to acceptance, which I mentioned yesterday. Both of these tenets have been very useful to me because I am not fighting so hard. Even if I feel sad and scared, I think, ‘Well, I’ll just…kind of…be’ and somehow the world keeps turning.

Something it took me a long time to grasp was that joy can lie alongside sorrow. Sorrow does not entirely dissolve joy – even if that joy is tiny. If I can stop agitating for a bit, that observation comes more naturally to me. How about you?

Also on ‘be’, I have – I would imagine this is partly because of hyper-vigilance – always felt the need to be doing a thing. Like, if I didn’t do a thing, whatever that thing was; if I didn’t keep busy, solving, sorting and doing, then somehow the wheels would fall off. I was scared of relinquishing control and I am still a work in progress in that regard. I have found it is very good for me to do absolutely nothing for periods of time. A few minutes here and there; half an hour: ooh – an hour sometimes. I consider this training for me. My nothing needed a prompt, however, so let me tell you what I tend to do. I lie on my bed, sometimes I cover my eyes with my eye mask (nothing fancy) and then I put my big green exercise ball on the bed and lie with my legs up. I close my eyes, daydream, focus on my breathing – in for 8, hold for 8, out for 8, counting, and a few cycles of that, and what can be managed is different for everyone, and can just be regular focus on the breath to calm the system. If I feel fretful, I rather like listening to a deep rest meditation – here’s one I liked –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKGrmY8OSHM&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5tD or try a Yoga Nidra practice, of which there are many free online. Or, on the Calm app, Spotify, YouTube or wherever, I really find binaural beats help me; this is music where tones of two slightly different frequencies are played through each ear and for which you need headphones. If you don’t like them, ditch them and try something else that you find soothing.

Most importantly about this word be. You know, we think we need so much, we think we need to do or gain or achive so much to be of worth, but, I would argue, if you are looking after others, looking after your world and looking after yourself, you need not do more. So much of the rest is a chase, an illusion; when you get ‘there’, you find there is no ‘there’ (there) and off you go again – and it can be relentless. So maybe to just be is enough?

With much love,

Bookworm

Midsummer’s Day, 2025.

It has become really clear to me that, despite my doctorate, all my books, my teaching and my salient lived experience, I am not going to be able to get a big memoir or any kind of book that’s mental-health adjacent to market. I’ve tried too many times. I don’t have a big enough author profile, I don’t have the time or the health to start and maintain and build a massive podcast, I am not a celebrity and I am not demonstrably and publicly expert enough in this area. I have found this particular disappointment a hard one to bear.

But that’s not the end. I decided that, instead, I would just spend a month gifting thoughts on topics that are about looking after you. Please know I am not a health professional and that I speak from lived experience and a lot of reading. Just enjoy these or read them for interest. Please share widely.

Today is the letter A. Let’s make it about ACCEPTANCE.

I cannot tell you of everything that is going on in my life because to do so would be treading on others’ agency. I can tell you that I came from a background which left me with a lifetime of mental and physical health problems and that for a long time no-one believed my story. I am sure plenty still don’t and Dear Lord, it has caused me so much pain and confusion. Into any life may come hardship or suffering, terrible loss, or the long dark night of a soul in a life which had seemed free; now you feel it has no meaning – no core to which you may be tethered.

People endure so much. We cannot minmise the suffering of others right now, though we ought to respond with compassion – which includes practical action. Still, what I am sharing something that has been a fundamental for me. It’s acceptance; radical acceptance, really.

You may want things to be a different way, for your life and circumstances to be different, but there may also be things you cannot change. It took me a long time to realise that the reason I was so tired was partly hyper-vigilance, but partly always trying to fix things I could not fix; to understand things I could not understand because it was not possible to access the information I needed. It’s exhausting. Acceptance is a core practice in meditation, more like being at peace with exactly what’s here, in the present moment. I am also talking about fully coming to understand that if you learn to accept, with as much grace as you can muster, those things you cannot change, you are fighting less. It is simple, but requires practice and for you to remind yourself. With such practice, it is not that you feel less, but, I have found, habits of comparing oneself with others tend to recede and you notice what you do have because you are less focused on what you don’t. I find I have been less fearful, too.

In my case, I knew I had to keep tolerating certain things that were deeply painful, too; also, I’ve had a great deal of loss – and loss in traumatic and frightening circumstances, shaping who I was as a young person. I’ve found that focus on acceptance has helped to still my nervous system. If you’d like an app, then there are some helpful things to listen to on the Calm app from Jeff Warren and Tamara Levitt and I should keep an eye on the vast amount of free teaching that well-known psychologist Rick Hanson puts out there. If you google him, you’ll find meditations, talks and the very helpful JOT – just one thing – which is a free and well-written piece of information to consider every week. It often touches on acceptance

May I suggest a text for you to read? I have found this one of great practical value.

I have much, much more to say, but these need to be brief posts.

Be well, you’re not and were never alone,

Anna x

On writing; on publishing: on life

In February, 2026, my eleventh book will be published, by an award-winning, exciting independent publisher. I have just finished the first in a projected series of commercial fictions – cosy paranormal – and I have a novella out and about. In addition to this, I am reading for a new literary novel and thinking about another. I am the creator of a literary prize for unpaid carers supported by lovely folks across industry, I am about to go to a big publishing event (through my teaching work) and I’m delighted to be seeing some of you in the winter, as I know I will be, at my event at Folkestone Literary Festival. I have fulfilling teaching and mentoring plus a little secondary English. I became Dr Vaught at Christmas.

I have deliberately written this because it is part of the picture and I need to see it and feel it and then explain what follows. You may know that we are very stretched in our family life, that I have had a lot of loss of late (having been launched into the world on that, too) and that, where I live, I’ve/we’ve been subject to a horrendous and baffling bullying campaign, including destruction of parts of our garden. Community policing has supported me, but I don’t feel so safe at home. I have chronic illness, an extremely ill eldest and two others, one of whom is school age – and the integrity of home is so important. It’s all a bit hard to take in. I am very tired, but my students, my mentees, being myself – call it authenticity, if you like – lovely friends, my gorgeous cousins and in-laws (the latter in the US), writers, reading – writing: here is life.

SO, my darlings. What about the books? This is not about writing, but about publishing. I wake up so sad and I think, would it be best to walk away?

I must speak frankly. Out of my ten published books, four are now out of print. A couple of weeks ago, for the second set. One of my publishers closed and did not tell authors. While I was keen to see that the director was alright, it was staggering. I am sitting on lots of unsold rights. Two previous publishers did not want futher work from me, one because my work did not fit with changes afoot for the direction of the publishing house, the other did not want the next book. I am owed royalties by two publishers; one of them I have never had a statement from. I was agented on my fourth book and, eventually, I left my agency because most of what I wrote was not wanted and did not go on submission and books sent on submission were most ghostly by editors, with a few rejections which were enormously complimentary. Of course it was amicable! It just plainly was not going anywhere and, in the end, I am not sure why. Lots of agent intereest and then agented again; this agent was then made redundant but not long after had a new job so I was agented again. Then late last week, I learned that, for entirely understandable reasons, they were leaving. I had been waiting for reads and had a strong – I thought – nonfiction proposal out on submission. I understand that was mostly ghosted.

I am not sure how to feel about any of this, because it has been a rough ride. It’s more sad on top of sad. I have had some initial conversations with people about next steps and I sincerely hope I can share some bits of good news soon. And yet and yet. I would love to have someone help me develop my career, to see my books – even if they are the new ones because I am happy for a fresh start – thrive and be more widely available. It has yet to happen. I hear about people being helped with strategy and see friends with one book out doing any number of what you might call big things. Yes I would like a bit of that! On the other hand, it seems very normal not to have it. I have worked so very hard and hustled. At this point, I question to what end and I am going to be brooding a little indulgently on that here and there. Bitter? No. I don’t think I have it in me. Bitterness is corrosive. Also, I need to stay as well as I can for my own sake and those I love and care for. That’s a lot of people.

You saw the first paragraph. Those are all possibilities and they all exist. With very little help and in challenging circumstances, I made them. It is time to say that was pretty brave of me, really. Then the books; writing. People say that after disappointment or things going badly wrong in publishing, they couldn’t write for a while. I have not found that. Not a bit. It just keeps coming. I think this is a blessing. I think, partly because I teach Creative Writing and am kind of…industry adjacent, I separate writing from publishing. It is market. What you can place, what can sell, insofar as anyone knows. You can write something beautiful and it might only sell a few copies because it was not perceived as being maketable so it barely saw the light of day. Industry can get that wrong, of course: it did with my teaching book, The Alchemy, which is widely used and appreeciated, but that is a story for later in the year. I think I am tired of not making much progress, of what I can do – and I can do a lot – not being exploited. Maybe that will change; maybe…it just will not.

So why is sad beautiful? Because it has its own gentle, melancholy focus. When you write just because you love writing, there is something new and untethered. I have found that having had a rocky run has made me more effective as a Creative Writing mentor and teacher, both in terms of empathy for my mentees and students and because I can give them better advice. I think, also, that in sadness there is a quiet creativity and a bolstering of the imagination. Also, feeling as I do, my work with the Curae prize feels more meaningful than ever and also my friendships with other writers.

Unusually, I do not have the energy to write more today, so let me end by saying that it’s a straight-through online teaching day today – with a break to cook tea for the youngest – and I am so enjoying talking to my writers about their work. I have made a few connections with publishing professionals for myself, but I am not making more than a few. How could I have capacity?

In my in-between times today – the caught moments – I will be reading and reciting all the poems I know by heart; it’s meditative and healing. Strange that this is what first came to my lips, then. Books open on the right pages, poems beckon. Sad can be beautiful too. Here is what I said aloud; it’s from Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘Prelude’.

But satire is unfruitful prayer,
Only wild shoots of pity there,
And you must go inland and be
Lost in compassion’s ecstasy,
Where suffering soars in summer air—
The millstone has become a star.
Count then your blessing, hold in mind
All that has loved you or been kind:

With love,

Anna x

Today has been the day when I made decisions. I hope some people out there will find what follows helpful and loving. To you, from me, with hugs. Much of this is publishing industry-related, but in the context of a complex life – and my realisation that I am not meeting my own needs.

(Picture is of me, in one of my favourite places, on St Brides Bay in Pembrokeshire – much of my family is from around here.)

You read about burnout and, while some of what I write will be about industry, this is in the context of my managing life. I feel very tired, but in a way that is not relieved by sleep. I need a broader rest and considerably less stress. So, without going into detail about the care needs and complexities in my family, just know that I am sad and need time and space to offer more loving care and more to myself. Because of my past, I am hyper-vigilant and find it difficult to let go and not be in charge. In short, to respond to life’s demands as if they are not an emergency because much of my early life and key developmental stages were predicated upon thread and emergency. I need time and space to build on the repair work I have done in specialist trauma therapy and EMDR and with meditation practice, yoga and keystones of self-care. I need time to be alone and recharge. It is very rare that I can be; that someone does not need me to do or be something and so, of course, in I rush. But you see, I am already carrying a lot and this is partly trauma response. I want to fix everything. I need to turn back to my immediate family and to myself.

What will this mean? In no particular order…

I have shaved back work to teaching and mentoring for which I am contracted over the next two to three years. If I am waiting for confirmation of an event, the new rule is chase once, no reply, OUT. In other words, I am on time and frequently ahead of deadline out of respect for others. I know doing things when you say you will is not always possible, but it happens so much in publishing – in my experience that is – and the strain has shown on me. So where things are open-ended and I said I needed a decision, I allot a time period and then it’s over.I am going to start initiating deadlines more often because I just cannot have so many open-ended things happening. This will not always be possible. At the moment, I have five books, including a previously published novella, two nonfiction proposals, a novel and a brand new novella under consideration. I just finished a PhD. Honestly, at no stage have I seriously given myself time to understand the volume of work that was. I need to. I need to celebrate that level of outputting. Just me. I also need to do some writing slowly and some for fun. I am switching partly to digital-first commercial fiction – if they will have me, that is – so that, among other things, the timetable is more predictable. I am feeling the strain.I realise that I am carrying much grief – for the illness, pain, the long road during which my family has been let down by any number of health and education professionals. It has been and is heart-breaking.I am just…really disappointed by elements of publishing. I am grieving that, too. But I haven’t allowed it properly. I’ve been thinking it’s trivial to have got upset, but it DOES bother me that most of my books (there is shining exception) have not been promoted much, have been ignored, that communications have been so poor, that a beautiful book sits there with stacks of unsold rights which I cannot access to sell, that I have never got funding, that I am chasing royalty statements, that Curae and the young carers’ project didn’t get funding, that I have been so let down by the industry press and by some industry professionals on the Curae prize. It’s a ground-breaking initiative for unpaid carers, for heaven’s sake. I need to grieve all that – the time wasted, only I couldn’t have known. The situations and people who just…ought to have been better. I want to find time to recharge so that I can appreciate blessings more acutely – because there are many. Teaching is the joy of my life, for example. And I actually get paid for doing something which means that much to me.I found that with my out of office on, folks still filled up my inboxes across socials because they need help. I don’t think I have anything spare right now. I also realised that, much as I adore people, socials were depleting my energy. I feel compelled to stay in touch and also, partly through not having been promoted as a writer, I feel compelled to always be ON. Engaged. But I’m too tired. I can’t keep this up any more. All apps off my home screen, and possibly will come off my phone, but it’s not practical just yet.I realise that I am going to have to cut a few ties, frankly. Though I am an adult, I am still seeking approval from family members who will never approve of me because my own mother didn’t approve of me and the lie settled. It’s still there. I’ve had enough now. There are other people in my life whose demands on me exceed what I am able to give; it’s tough to say, but it’s time.I want to concentrate on beauty, breathing, my kids, books, hearth and home. You may know, if you’ve kept an eye on me elsewhere, that over the past year for reasons we don’t know, threatening behaviour has happened towards me in my own home and an area of my garden was vandalised. I have not felt safe at home for some time, but I have spent the past few months strengthening boundaries, adding lights, security cameras, being supported by the community policing team and the council, who have been delightful, and by my lovely local community. We don’t know who has done this or why. For someone who comes from a trauma background, to feel invaded in this way by persons unknown has been very stressful. You see another reason I feel burned out? I haven’t felt sanctuary.I want and need to simplify my life and ringfence time to be alone and to heal. To build the strength to bear sorrow with more equanimity. That will not impact my work, which is teaching and mentoring, but it will in terms of my toleration for others’ demands, people flaking on projects, and open-ended publishing situations. I need shape and structure in a chaotic and restlessly sad world, so I can find my way back home. So I can find myself.

Well now what have we got going on? First thing is that I have a nonfiction book out on agency submission. I have actually proposed a series, but it can be a standalone book. It’s literary self-help, a short book each time, and on each occasion an area of literature and a theme to help with a particular ill, or something we might need. Anyway, it’s called Dr Bookworm Prescribes and plays with the idea of a sort of…apothecary; a bibliotherapist. Close readings, but only short ones – ideas; all kinds of fun and consolation.

AND THEN…

On Monday night I handed my new fiction to my agent. This is a psychological drama; a novella. It’s dark and weird and, while you can tell it’s me, the style is simpler and leaner than that of previous books. I started writing this last year and put it aside for a while, and then finished it quite quickly this month. It’s called All The Days I Did Not Live. Will she like it?

AND MEANWHILE…

The judges are reading the entries for the 2025 Curae prize for unpaid carers. I have read all the entries and they are reading in batches. I feel that, across poetry, fiction and nonfiction, there are some standout entries: the ones I just cannot stop thinking about. But mine is not the only decision and, mid April, we will get together and make our list. Shortlist is published on the 1st of May.

AND AT THE SAME TIME…

My first two books are out of print and the publisher closed. I have my rights back. I am not sure what to do with the first book (auto-fiction), but U have offered the second one to a delightful indie publisher I adore TOGETHER WITH a strange little historical fiction and magical realism mash-up that my previous agency didn’t like AND a nonfiction proposal, which could be a book OR could be commuted to something essay length. We shall see.

AND I WONDER…

I always like to be working on something, but I am taking my time with this next one and, to be brutally honest, going all-out for the market by attaching the book to a known oeuvre – and that’s all I am saying other than F. Scott Fitzgerald.

AND FINALLY…

You may have been expecting the follow-up to 2023’s kindle bestseller The Alchemy…originally slated for this autumn, The Elixir has been moved, at my request, to 2025 on account of not being superhuman. I will be working on that this year, too.

NONE OF THIS IS MY DAY JOB!

Big news is that I am now represented by a new agent – the rather fabulous Kesia Lupo at The Bindery Agency. We will be able to tell you what we are about to get to before long, but I can tell you that you might be seeing me branch out into new nonfiction, more literary fiction and, most different, a darkly comic commercial fiction series (the latter under a different name, to keep it separate and because I have always loved the idea of an alter ego RA HA HA). 

A couple of books for you this year. In July, To Melt The Stars is published. It’s a strange little collection of essays on the topic of love. Out 31/07 and you can pre-order it now. Here: https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/anna-vaught-to-melt-the-stars

From the publisher....To Melt the Stars is a collection of essays looking at love at first conversation, queerness, weird wedding days, motherhood, romance, baby loss, and intergenerational trauma, among other themes. Anna Vaught’s essays address dark and difficult themes, and do so without holding back, but that darkness is enlivened by a rhythm and buoyancy of language. These essays are rich in allusion, playful, and yet deeply personal, exploring love and loss in intimate ways. 

What else have I? I am two weeks away from my final supervision on the PhD by Published Works I have been doing at York St John University. Magical realism and trauma. We hope to submit for September and I am waiting to hear who my external examiner will be and when the viva is. I am nervous but also proud that I did this. That I got this far. Imposter syndrome doesn’t touch the sides. This winter – although it’s not announced yet – my first illustrated book is out: a creepy little novella for Christmas. Think of it as homage to M.R. James, and read it to your own unsettled audience…ooooh little clue or two below…

That’s enough for now! You can come and work with me at Jericho Writers next year on their ultimate novel course or sign up for mentoring with me now. Come January, 2025, the next Curae prize for writer-carers opens and I will telling you all about that. As before, the shortlisted and winning writers are published – November, 2025, in a beautiful anthology – just like this one…

I’ve seen the film twice; once at the cinema, when I was inconsolable afterwards and then, at home, sitting in bed. On both occasions I watched it alone. I do feel it’s a masterpiece, but I do not have the knowledge or the skill to comment in depth on film-making, so thought I would explain instead what it meant to me.

I must tell you that this account will contain spoilers but also that I am speaking frankly of illness, death and bereavement. I am also, for the purposes of this piece, not commenting much on the queer trauma that is also at the heart of the film, so beautifully realised alongside plangent period detail – all of which had me howling. I thought it was wonderful as queer romance. I might write about that elsewhere.

So, over a period of four and half years, late childhood slipping into adulthood, I lost all my immediate family, including my parents fourteen months apart from one another. My father died first, suffering in circumstances that had been very frightening for me – and he died in a way that might be best described as devoid of medical control. Noone ever spoke to me about it. I internalised that terror. But we will come back to that. My mother reacted to his death by turning inward and resenting me even more than she already did. It was complicated, painful and frightening. When he died, I was not invited to sit with her or my sibling in the church and we will return to that one too. I was a teenager. When my mother died, I lost the whole of my father’s family because they broke contact with me. My aunt said simply, ‘We won’t be seeing you again now.’ Like something out of a play. I had just thrown dirt into my mother’s grave. I listened to this. I thought only that I did not know what to do with it yet. Then, my much older sibling began to distance themself from me, before eventually breaking contact. I did not have my much loved godmother to tell, because I had lost her too. The only photograph I have of me as a baby being held is by her, not by my mother. I always felt that told me a lot.

There are many complications here; much dysfunction: a lot I just do not know about. There were some desperately twisted narratives which I have explored elsewhere. I always felt, and was led to believe, that I was a blot on my parents’ lives, particularly on my mother’s. But you see I still respected a lot of the things they were and I still loved them and yes: some terrible things had happened that I am still getting over today. Remember that I said I loved them too.

I know this part of my piece is chilling, I want to tell you things that are intensely optimistic, so stay with me. I used the word ‘yet’ when I said I did not know what to do about being told, graveside, that I would not be seeing a whole side of my family any more.

I know now. At some point I decided there were some things I would do and I had a resolution there; it took me a long time to know how to fulfil it. I think things were broken in my immediate family. That it was traumatic – of course it was traumatic: my whole being has been governed by the impact of developmental trauma because my brain and my litany of physical responses have been conditioned to act in a way that is not conducive to good health or living. Before I knew how to fix any of that, I still thought – I was absolutely sure – that at some point I could.

I thought that my heart could contract and I could hand this on; this pain. Or that it could expand so that I could give and receive love. I also tried to think about what darkness could teach me. Humour? Tactics? More empathy for others? I acknowledged that, in me, was a gleam of intense optimism because I was acknowledging that herein was choice, to be enacted however faltering. I also learned gradually to breathe through feelings of terror and to know how to access the support that would help me deal with my fragmented memory. Trauma memory, we know, is not linear; because of that I lived half in the past and when I did, on a fully sensory level, through flashbacks prompted by a smell, a cold face, some comments – many things. I also gradually learned that I could make myself and not be a composite of other people’s opinions of me. This is what I was. Love – the acceptance that goes with true love – changes all that too. It’s a part of a moving through.

In the film, Adam’s heart, his pain, his early loss: it’s all compact, there and at the core. He feels this hard lump of it, like granite – I know that; I know it so well – and is aware of the way in which his life is predicated on it. If not granite, it’s like an embolus of fear, always there. He is alone. More to the point he is lonely. There are only two people in the block of flats. It is writ large. So quiet. It is through meeting Harry, who is kind, intuitive and deeply sad because he has ‘drifted to the edges’ of his family, that Adam begins to unlock a sense of being out there, laughing, loving, sensuality, identity. He has the opportunity to see his parents again, which I found chilling and deeply beautiful. I had no chance and never will have a chance to say goodbye lovingly to either of my parents; there was no opportunity for talk, healing, fo anyone to say, as I write in my novel Saving Lucia, ‘You are my child. And I am sorry. I am sorry.’ Moreover I had no witness, as Adam, ultimately, has Harry – because Harry sees Adam’s parents too. However, later I had Mr Bookworm. my husband, who listened imaginatively – and still does this.

Adam is a scriptwriter. When we meet him, we learn he has been trying to write something about his parents. A story. Did he invent them into being in order to understand? A narrative. Something (that word again) linear? Did he also invent Harry? Reviews describe them all as ghosts. Perhaps. But what substantial ghosts, operating in the world of the living, either already aware of their tenuous link on this world, like Adam’s parents, or about to experience that, as with Harry. However you interpret this, it is beautiful and very optimistic. Yes. Optimistic.

I have seen people writing about how the film was too painful for them or dreary or too bleak. This was not my experience. It was a film about love and how we may receive it, which is the best of us. We cannot grieve without love and, sometimes, we cannot love without grief. It is good to speak of this openly. Because there is an opportunity, no-one is alone in the film, at the end. Not his parents, who have the chance to say what they need; not Adam – who also gets to comfort them about how they died as they slip away (he is not entirely truthful, of course) from him. Furthermore, he is able to be with Harry, who has died alone, unfound, unnoticed by his own family. And Adam is different. He has been through a terrifying process – the film does not baulk at this – and regardless of whether it is also the story of a man who knows how to invent a narrative, he is loving and he is smiling. His heart is also changed. ‘I should have let you in. That first night’ he says to Harry. ‘But I was scared.’

No-one here dies alone. There is some ambiguity, I think, in whether Adam has also died or was dead all along. There is a spaciousness in the supernatural here. I do not need to be sure.

I said before, your heart can contract or there can be an expansion. What happened to me, in complicated circumstances, did me irreperable damage, but gradually, through professional help and by keeping myself open, things were altered. Broken, but beautiful. If you follow me on social media, you may recognise this phrase. It’s what I want for all of us. We cannot avoid death, or pain, or fear, but we can make the circumstances available so that, however broken we are by loss or suffering, we can still integrate and still create things. We can still love.

In my case, I came to think that I sat in the world awkwardly, with the mess inside my head – but I would do it anyway. I have some lovely extended family, my friends, my boys. I tried to take the pain and make it my teacher, so that I could be more sensitive in my work – from secondary teaching through to creative writing mentoring now. When eventually I started writing, only a few years ago, I developed a strong autobiographical thread, much immersed in magical realism, because that was the mode entirely natural to me. I came to understand more about trauma and, when I felt ready, to think about how I could explore my books in contexts. That is what my PhD is about.

Along the way I met and married a man who asked me for directions in the street and had three children with him. That was a considerable risk. Wildly impulsive. There was something in me which had not withered: I was able to take that risk. It is our silver wedding anniversary this July. I want to say that it is a wide world and there are always more people to love: love is pure gift. It is always ubiquitous, but no less precious for that. We may feel because of trauma, of not being loved, of loss, that it cannot be experienced and felt fully. We may have been separated out, as I felt, and made to feel we are not loveable. That is not so. My experience is the opposite of all this.

Back to the film. It is a profoundly affecting piece of work. As a study of trauma, loss, love, identity and measuring so sensitively the atmosphere, the temperature of a period of time.

There is one thing I hope. That there will be people watching who feel less afraid of their end; of others’. And I want to offer you a few lines from a story. I am a writer, like Adam. It’s about loss and the fear that it engenders. Also, that if you can tell stories, have vocabularly, speak openly, ‘you will not be alone.’

‘Care for your own heart and devise a vocabulary for your loss, unique to you. It comes to us all, but with a word-hoard, you will not be alone. Remember too, that in darkness, as I have seen, there are navy and lavender lights and a star which laughs.’ (‘A Gravedigger’s Lament’ – from Ravished)

The film ends, lovers, friends, together on the bed as darkness deepens. But there are stars in the sky outside. And then there are more.

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