cyberdish Profile

I've come to a pivotal point in my life where I can no longer claim to myself or anyone else that my book is "a work in progress". I have no earthly idea how many pages I've written, but certainly no less than 500. These pages still need to be edited/tweaked before I can do anything with them but as far as the actual writing is concerned it's unorganized but ready to go. My book "Pretend It's Not Me" is an intense memoir that delves into prostitution, drug addiction, my time in a mental hospital, which is where I was discarded after telling my family I was gay. They left me there and never spoke to me again. That was 1977 when I was 14. From there I ran away to New York, where I did my best to survive. Being alone on the streets of New York at 14, scared and homeless, hundreds of miles away from everything and everyone I ever knew in Canada was an experience I had to overcome. What did I know about life then? It was trial by fire and I made a lot of mistakes. That's where the story takes hold.Trying to sound intelligent about a story like mine isn't without it's challenges. I have a Grade 9 education and everything I learned about life came from the streets. The thing I'm most proud about, aside from the fact that I managed to crawl from the wreckage, is that I never hurt anyone. I never stole from people or lived a life of crime, which of course has it's place in the lives of the young and unwanted. That really mattered to me. I kept myself out of jail and never came across a book I didn't want to read. I kept my ears and my heart open and tried my hardest to fight the pain and the loneliness of an unwanted existence. I arrived in this world already despised and resented, the hospital was just the last rejection in a life that never knew anything else, a heart that never felt anything else. So my book is not just a "really fun idea" :o), it's a record of my truth. I can't stand it when people say writing is "cathartic", oy vey already, my book is more than cathartic. It's introspective and funny, with a few bon bons of long overdue revenge that I'm truly looking forward to. I will say that the only part of my book I might consider cathartic is the revenge! I can't imagine anything more satisfying than the well prepared well thought out and superbly executed act of revenge one can enjoy by writing a book that tells the truth. Does that sound superficial? Who cares, I'm the one who was disowned and commited to the nuthouse for being gay. From where I'm standing the only word I can think of to describe my enthusiastic approach to revenge is JUSTIFIED!