Staying Inside the Work Long Enough to Tell the Truth

—a note from inside the work, and a reminder for this month’s Marathon CoWrite

Last week I should have been celebrating! I’d completed a revision of my manuscript that I thought would never end.

My memoir, Even When I Stayed, traces what it meant to remain inside a system that repeatedly failed me—and how long it took to see reality and begin stepping outside the illusion.

I held my breath and hit send, releasing the file to an editor for evaluation and to beta readers for another round.

I know there’s still work ahead.

At a minimum, that includes integrating feedback, another full read, and a final print review.

But completing this revision was huge.

The goalpost shifted last September on the QM2, during a retreat organized by Allison K. Williams. After reading my synopsis, agent Jessica Berg advised me to cut the story.

It was too much for one book to hold.

I agreed. It was almost too much to live through, let alone contain on the page.

I set aside the second half of the manuscript—beginning with Steve’s psychotic break—for a second book (The Final Exodus).

Now EWIS ends as I walk away from the Jehovah’s Witness Organization that had dictated my worldview since I was four years old. That shift removed the screen I’d been hiding behind.

I had to face my life more directly, under a brighter light.

And inside that space, over months of deep work, a different story emerged.

The tears and dreams that woke me at 2:00 a.m. were replaced with metaphors—ways of making sense not just of what happened, but what it meant.

Each time I wove one thread in, more demanded my attention.

I had no idea when the flow would stop, but I committed to staying until it did.

Six months later, I came up from the work like a groundhog into bright sunlight—blinking, adjusting, not entirely convinced the world outside was real.

The toll of those months was real—visceral.

I should have taken a break and at least acknowledged the milestone.

Instead, I did what everyone says to do next: I wrote essays to build a platform—a record of published work.

Not one, but two essays. Strong arcs. Easy entry. Publishable.
I wasn’t proud—I was grumpy—and angry in a way I couldn’t name, let alone understand.

I hated both of them.

I let them sit for a couple of days. When I reread them, I saw the writing was good. The problem was the content.

They felt like tabloid versions of my life—juicy, exposed, stripped of context.

Like I’d told the truth, but not the truth that matters.

Yes, they captured what happened.
But they couldn’t hold the larger forces that shaped it.

I don’t share hard things to invite sympathy.

I write literary memoir from inside the thinking process—grounded in lived, scene-driven experience.

I write about survival.
About the slow movement from having no agency—especially inside belief systems—to owning your life.
About making sense, seeing patterns, and opening a path toward healing.

Writing deep requires staying long enough to see the currents below the surface—not just what happened, but what shaped it.

Then Amy Collins said something that reframed everything.

My book isn’t about leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
It’s about being a feminist inside a misogynistic system—and getting out.

She named it.
I was stunned.

I had lived inside it for decades and never seen it clearly.
But now I do.

I write to make meaning—to connect what I’ve lived to the larger forces shaping all of us.

I’ll keep working in long, deep stretches and sharing within a framework that offers connection. I won’t be stringing scenes from the memoir into soap-opera-style essays.

Of course, if you want the story of what brought me to the edge, you’ll find it in the book—held within a larger context than any single essay can carry.

Please join us Saturday and Sunday for the CoWrite (details and link below)

Marathon CoWrite Information and Link

Marathon Direct Zoom Link

If you’re participating in the protests on Saturday, we’re with you.

If your participation looks like writing—going deep and leaning into creativity—we’ll be here, writing alongside you.