T.R. Hill's Blog

In a writing workshop, a fellow writer and early reader of Deep Down the Rabbit Hole asked me if Kinsley’s journey is informed by my own. Kinsley, the protagonist, is a self-described f*ck-up and has endured significant trauma in her twenty-four years of life. Here is my response:

As for my story, that is a very good question. I’ve been pondering it as I’ve gone about my morning. I’m happy to say that I haven’t endured any of the trauma Kinsley has (or Caleb for that matter), but I do very much feel connected to both characters. I think I’ve taken my own regrets, failures, and emotions and poured them into Caleb and Kinsley while having these manifest in different ways (if that makes sense?). 

I think Kinsley’s overcoming and forgiving herself of her past mistakes and “mess-ups” and breaking the chains that bind her to her father and Landon are, for me, symbolic of the ways I feel I’ve messed up and the strides I’m making to grow into who I’m supposed to be. I think that deep down I’ve always known that writing (or at least something related to it) was the path for me, but I’ve resisted it for countless reasons. I have often felt that I “peaked” in high school with everything rolling downhill for the past 20 years. 

I started college but fell in love, moved to a small town a couple of hours from home to be near him, married, changed my college major a dozen times (creating a long list of class credits that didn’t amount to a degree), became obsessed with the idea of motherhood, dropped out of college, enjoyed a sometimes hair-pulling but lovely experience as a stay-at-home (and homeschooling) mom to three kids before returning to college as an adult student to pursue a degree in English. 

I went in with the goal of just finishing my degree so that I could say I did it, but the feedback I received from my professors opened up a part of me I had closed off since my high school English classes (which were outstanding experiences for me). I had the opportunity to work as a writing tutor on campus, helping other students refine their skills, and it was quite enjoyable and felt natural to me. I even considered going on to graduate school with the idea of teaching college-level English and literature. 

I didn’t, of course. And though I tried to stay in the university loop for a while after graduating, submitting, and presenting papers to local conferences, it all faded away eventually. A series of “failures” (the ideas and goals I’ve chased since then), has occupied my time for almost a decade. I don’t particularly remember what prompted the self-reflection (maybe it was the idea of approaching 40 LOL), but last year, I read this quote by C.S. Lewis:

I am sure that some are born to write as trees are born to bear leaves: for these, writing is a necessary mode of their own development. If the impulse to write survives the hope of success, then one is among these.

It was a bit of a “light bulb moment,” but I suppose it should have been clear to me all along. Growing up, when I got into trouble (my mouth—it was the problem), my dad would send me to my room and tell me to write. He’s an artist and art teacher—not a writer or English teacher—and to this day he doesn’t know where the idea came from except, perhaps divine intervention. But it worked. I learned to express my emotions and thoughts in a way that we could then engage in civilized discourse. And I’ve always turned to it in my hour of need. It’s just what I do—like Kinsley draws and paints rather than writing in a journal or diary. 

So, very long answer to a simple question (I apologize!), but I guess part of Kinsley’s journey is informed by my own—the one I’m currently on. Last August, I asked myself, “What’s the one thing you would do if you knew you would not fail?” And the answer was “write a book.” I joke that I’ve failed at all the things I never wanted to do, might as well give it a go and “fail” at the one thing I’ve always wanted to do. I toyed with a few different story ideas before this one grabbed hold of me and refused to let go. And here we are! 

In Deep Down the Rabbit Hole, Kinsley turns to art as an outlet for her emotions and experiences, while I turn to writing. For some, it’s creating—for others, it’s meditating or exercising. What is it for you?

An angry wind whipped the pop-up canopy like the whooping I got for calling Andy Harper a bastard. I didn’t know what I was saying back then. I was only eight.  My hind, blistered pink for days, made it near impossible to sit, or even move. Twenty-three years later and I can still recall the throbbing sting. Ma said she would’ve made me eat soap if she hadn’t just run out. But money was tight back then and she couldn’t go wasting a bar of soap on my dirty mouth. Her dishwater-dry hands worked for free. Dad had just lost his job over at the paint factory and was out beating the pavement most days. It wasn’t too long after my whooping that he got hired on at Lawry’s. That’s when things started to look up. He made shift manager in less than a year and Ma always had a bar of soap waiting for me then. Who knows, maybe if he’d gotten passed over for the promotion we wouldn’t have buried him yesterday.

The guy that did it, his wife is expecting. He didn’t take the layoff well, but then who does? Dad’s hands were tied—he was just passing on a message from up the ladder. Sitting there in that old green Laz-E boy he told me how it killed him to lay these guys off. He didn’t know what he was saying. No one in the shop saw it coming. This guy was just there to pack up his things. They didn’t know he was packing a 9mm. My dad went out to lend him a hand, and that’s when he did it. Two shots, they said—one in my dad’s chest and one through the guy’s own head. 

I didn’t go to the guy’s funeral, but his wife came to Dad’s. We haven’t met, but I know it was her. She stood in the back with this awful look on her face—part shame, part horror, wholly shattered. She kept running her ivory hands over her rounded belly draped in black—like she was consoling the child inside. I thought to myself how lucky that little unborn bastard was. He wouldn’t have to say goodbye to his dad, like I did. I guess that’s what made me think of Andy Harper, and being eight. Sitting under that tarp at the graveside, while it took its beating from the wind, I found it impossible to move. For an instant I felt that throbbing sting, but this time it hit my chest. The beating wasn’t meant for the canopy—it was meant for me. I’m the reason my dad took that job at Lawry’s, me and my dirty mouth. He had to pay for more soap.

Soap Money is a piece I wrote for a creative writing course in college. My kids were much younger at the time, so I took my laptop to the backyard and worked on my assignments while they played. We had to turn in weekly writing journals, and I was out of ideas. I closed my eyes and listened to the noise around me—kids laughing, cars passing, dogs barking, and a tattered tarp whipping against the fence post. The tarp was originally placed to provide shade but had come loose by storms and wind.

That sound—a tarp whipping in the wind—became the seed for Soap Money. Inspiration may be an unending well, but it’s not always readily tapped, and I’m always searching for seeds that might propel my next story. Where do you find creative inspiration?