THE DOCTOR IS IN

MORE ON WHY WE KEEP WRITING

In April, I received an intriguing email from Peter Cox, the British literary agent who hosts the Litopia Writers' Podcasts. His staff had enjoyed my recent posts on BB&H, and wondered whether I would be interested in being a featured guest on an episode of Litopia After Dark, the lively hour-long interview and discussion show broadcast live each Friday and then archived in podcasts.

I hesitated. As chronicled in this space, I have been trying to push myself in new directions, to embrace challenges I would have avoided previously from shyness or anxiety; but this invitation posed difficulties I was not at all sure I was ready to face.

For one thing, the regular panelists were intimidatingly literate, articulate, and quick-witted. I had trouble keeping up with the repartee when I was just listening to the show. My own gifts tend to be more reflective--give me a difficult problem and a week to ruminate on it, and I may come up with a complex but coherent response. Throw out a question to a group and more often than not, the discussion will have moved on by the time I've finished digesting the question itself.

Complicating things further, I have a mild hearing loss that makes it difficult for me to follow spoken communication without accompanying visual cues. In phone conversations with people who don't know me well, I sometimes come off as dull or uninterested, when I'm actually just trying to process what is being said. The prospect of engaging in spontaneous, rapid-fire discussion with a group of unseen strangers, some of whom had exotic (to a Brooklynite) accents was daunting.

Conveniently, I expected houseguests on the proposed date. I declined with what I hoped was convincing regret. But Eve, the program manager, wrote back quickly, offering another date. This time, I had no excuse. I accepted. 

I have no recollection of what was said on the program, and I still haven’t listened to the podcast. When it was over, I took a deep breath and prepared to cross this off the list of challenges I had taken on and survived.

Then Eve emailed to ask whether I would consider becoming a regular monthly panelist.

Since then, I have blanked out at critical on-air moments. I have lost the thread of a discussion and uttered a silence-producing non sequitur.  I have misheard questions and comments, and committed gaffes that would make Joe Biden blush. And I have lived, and the world has gone on spinning. My fellow panelists aren’t jaguars waiting to pounce; they are thoughtful and interesting people who enjoy a lively discussion or a rousing game of literary 20 questions. I feel I’m becoming part of an odd, scattered, yet engaging community, and I look forward to our monthly colloquia.

I have had similar experiences participating in group readings for anthologies, most recently the two readings this week for Mama, Ph.D. I get nervous before readings, often to the point where I regret having accepted the invitation. I’m a writer, I tell myself, not a performer, and next time I’ll remember this.

Fortunately, though, I write only on subjects I feel passionately about, and when I start talking about my passions, my shyness dissipates. So once I warm up, I tend to become fully engaged and open to the possibilities for connection these events offer.

Over the years, some of these connections have led to deep and lasting friendships. Others have been more transitory, but nonetheless rewarding. I am grateful for all of them.

As a child, I often felt lonely and out of place. As is the case with many writers, my intellect developed more quickly than my social skills, and peers tended to consider me weird. My interests seldom coincided with theirs, and my questions and observations made them uncomfortable. As I matured I learned to mask my strangeness with a veneer of social appropriateness, so that I fit in better, but a core of loneliness remained.

Books were my escape and my solace. Authors felt like kindred spirits to me, smart, lonely misfits who had important things to say and had to write them down because there was nobody around to listen and understand. I sometimes imagined that one day I would meet an author or two, and we would break through the loneliness, talk to each other, and be friends.

What a surprise, and a blessing, to realize that, unlike my aspirations to become a fairy godmother, to live in Atlantis, and to converse with my cat, my most important childhood dream has actually come true.,

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Comments

[Susan M]

This is a beautiful essay, Sue. Thanks so much for writing it. A wonderful way for me to begin my day.

[Caroline]

This was perfect for me to read today, as I am nervously preparing for my first live radio show, with two writers whose work I admire (though I hope not to the point of speechlessness!) Thank you for this.