ESCAPE BY URSULA RENÉE

This week our members shared their experiences 

on writing through hard times.  Thank you for your support.

She got a gun, killed your uncle and then shot herself.

For more than a week, I heard my mother’s voice in my head as well as the scream I emitted when she told me the tragic news about my uncle. During this time, I had been dealing with various emotions. There was anger at the woman who took the life of an uncle whom I had fond memories of. I felt pain for my mother who was burying a brother almost a year after her mother passed. And, there was disbelief that the events unfolded while I was attending an RWA/NYC chapter meeting.

My son helped me get through those days by making sure I got out of bed and I ate. And, my co-workers offered reassuring hugs and ears. But, even with all their support, I still needed something to quiet the voices in my mind.

As a child, I turned to writing as an escape. If I was unhappy with my parents, I could create a world with understanding relatives or, better yet, a universe in which parents did not exist. But, after my uncle’s death, escaping was not that easy.

I was unable to look at my thrillers without thinking about the horrors that took place that Saturday morning and I had trouble believing in in a happy-for-now after the tragic end to a forty-five-year marriage. Therefore, I pulled out the notes I had for a historical novel.

Instead of writing words on a page, I research the time period in which my novel would be set. This gave me something to do other than sit in the middle of the bed and replay that Saturday afternoon in my head or wonder what led to the tragedy.

Once I regained my focus and I lost myself in worlds in which I controlled the ending. The good guys received their rewards and the bad were punished.

I do not know how psychologists would feel about my method of coping. However, it helped me get from one day to the next. Eventually, the pain lessened, the voice faded and once again I was able to believe in Happy-for-Now.♥

Ursula Renée writes stories set in the early and mid-twentieth century with a diverse cast who must examine their own beliefs and challenge society's conventions to reach their happy-for-now. Her latest novel, BITTER BLUES, is the second book in her Big Band Series and it explores the challenges an interracial couple faces after saying, “I do,” in the 1940s. When she is not writing, Ursula enjoys photography, drawing and stone carving. She is the mother to one son and two cats.

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