Fiction to Non-Fiction with Dementia Shock and Awe!

I first met Stephanie years ago when her daughter Bailey interviewed me about my Men of Allegany County series, set in the Southern Tier of Western New York... Stephanie and I, both new authors, working toward a dream... and I've liked her ever since (and she didn't run screaming, always a plus!) Here she is today, author of several great stories, and new non-fiction author of a book that touched my heart and my soul after watching my father-in-law fade into the nasty oblivion of Alzheimer's four years ago... Steph, the book is great. So are you.

Welcome to Seekerville for our 10th birthday bash, amazingly talented speculative author S. R. Karfelt! 

There’s a quote by Stephen King that’s one of my favorites about fiction.

“Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie.” ~Stephen King

That speaks to me. Writers can tell the bald truth wrapped in a nice and easily digestible story. We can overcome race, politics, and religion in a wonderful fiction world. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Writing out the first draft of a fiction novel into the wee hours of the night is my happy place. I never planned to take my happy writing soul into that dark dank alley of non-fiction.

Reality Bites. Compared to fiction anyway.

My plan for the next book was a fiction one I’ve had rolling around in my psyche for ages. In fact I thought I’d whip it out in no time because I’ve drafted it and rewritten it a couple times over the years. That book was even scheduled with my publisher. But. Reality bit in the form of my mother-in-law with dementia moving in with us.

Before she came, when I knew she was heading our way, I made grand writing plans so that I could make this work. I’ll take a couple months off while I get her situated. She can get used to being here. We’ll get her on memory meds. When she’s comfortable, I’ll start writing again.

That thought process strikes me as ludicrous and darkly amusing now. The one and only steadfast fact I’ve learned about dementia is that no one gets used to it. Getting comfortable with losing your memory is not a thing. It didn’t take long for me to come to that realization and contact my publisher. I told them I couldn’t make my deadline. Fortunately for me I’m with a small press and they’re more flexible than some.

But as I was talking to them they made a suggestion. Why don’t you take all of those Facebook posts about your mother-in-law, and put them in a document and see if you can’t make a book out of it?

Okay, this is the next highly amusing LIGHT BULB idea I had. What a great idea! All I have to do is tell the truth! That’s easy! I can whip out a 50 or 60K word manuscript, fulfill my obligations, and I’ll have a nice little non-fiction book.

For the love of light, Seekers, that was probably the stupidest thought that’s ever rolled through my head, and believe me there have been some doozies. But I did it. I took all my Facebook posts about dementia and Gummy and put them into a word document.

The reason I’d been posting about her, to begin with, was because when my husband left me alone with dementia for a work trip to Asia, he made the mistake of saying, Do whatever you have to do to survive it.

Now, what do writers do to survive it? We write!

It surprised me how many people responded to those posts. I’d received a flood of responses, and suddenly I wasn’t alone with this avalanche of a disease.

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light. ~ Helen Keller

Suddenly I felt the stirrings of inspiration. So I gathered up months’ worth of posts like these:

• It's not that Gummy packs all her stuff to leave a couple times a day. It's that somewhere in this luggage are all the pix from her room, the batteries from her clock, and a vase full of live flowers.

*

• I'm trying something new. The answer to "Where am I?" is, you are here. It's not that I mind answering it. It's simply that it is often asked 2-3 times a minute. The confusion that goes with the answer and the proceeding questions can eat an entire day—and it can bring on panic, tears, or acceptance, but even if it goes well, it is asked again immediately.

• Physically I can't answer that question 16 hours a day. I'm exhausted halfway in, and she is shattered.

So I'm experimenting. You are here, we love you, you're safe. This is an evil ugly disease, but it can't make us not love her. Take that you evil _______. #dementia

And thanks Target for the perfect nightlight.

That nice easy non-fiction book took nine months of hard labor. Isn’t that 

indicative? I like to say it’s both the easiest thing I ever wrote and the hardest.

The easiest because all I had to do was tell the truth. The hardest because all I
had to do was tell the truth.

Part of the difficulty was because Facebook posts are not an outline and had to be slowly edited out. There’s a reason it went through eighteen rewrites and ten edits. Part of the difficulty was I spent my days dealing with dementia and my nights writing about it. The other problem was I’d never written a memoir before. In the end, I just started writing the truth and crying. All I know is I’m super tired now and my tear ducts are desert-dry, but I have what I call Gummy’s book.

It’s the story of us, us against dementia, laughter through tears, and that deep love when adversaries become friends. I’ve been blessed with the most wonderful mother-in-law, and in the end it’s been an honor to stand by her through this hellacious disease and to write this book. I can’t control dementia, but it can’t stop me from telling our story.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. ~Mark Twain

That quote could not be more apt.

Dementia isn’t obligated to stick to possibilities either. Memory loss is the dark side of Wonderland.

If Gummy and I both face it with rude gestures and naughty asides, that’s because we’d both rather laugh than cry.

Since Gummy collected teacups for what must be centuries, judging by how many she has, I named a chapter in the book after them. When I thought about a Seekerville giveaway, I decided it had to be tea related with some of my travel goodies thrown in. (Stonehenge cookies, chocolates, and bookmarks!)

The cover of Gummy’s book has a broken teacup on it. I cried all over the place when I saw it. By then my tears were little puffs of dust. When I showed the book to Gummy and told her it was about us, a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law and our eons together, about her fight with dementia, and the funny stories when she tried to make me a better housekeeper or when the dog jumped into a puddle of oil and she washed him with Tide, she said, “Really? Nobody told me!” And that is the book’s name, and Gummy’s tagline. Nobody Told Me love in the time of dementia.

If you’d like a chance at the tea giveaway, tell me a quick story and I’ll guess whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. I have a theory that the really off the wall ones are the true stories!

S.R. Karfelt writes fiction with a twist of fantasy, like the ancient immortal moonlighting as a cop in Kahtar, Warrior of the Ages and The Covenant Keeper Novels, or the witch in B*tch Witch who inherited an evil gene but refuses to be evil just because it’s in her blood. Nobody Told Me love in the time of dementia is her first work of non-fiction.

Wife, mother, explorer, and part-time hermit, S.R. lives in that hidden part of New York she likes to call The Shire. www.SRKarfelt.com