#272 Inside the Emotion of Fiction: Michelle Ross’s short story “Lifecycle of an Ungrateful Daughter,” from her short story collection SHAPESHIFTING

What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I have no idea what date I began writing this collection of stories, but I can tell you that the oldest story in the collection, “Lifecycle of an Ungrateful Daughter,” is a piece I began writing many, many years ago. Maybe 15 years ago or more? 20? The first draft of that story predates many of the stories in my first book, There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You.

While certainly fiction, “Lifecycle of an Ungrateful Daughter” is one of the most autobiographical stories I’ve ever written. After drafting it, I felt too close to the story—and also maybe just lacked confidence in my writing then—so I set it aside for many years. In fact, I completely forgot about the story for a while. Several years ago, a good friend of mine who had read an early draft of that story asked me whatever happened to it, why hadn’t I submitted it to journals? I had to work to hunt the draft down on my computer. I was surprised to find that it didn’t need all that much work. It was a little bloated was all. So revision was a matter of tightening. The rest of the stories in this book I wrote over the course of the last seven years or so. I finished the book in 2019 and started sending out soon after.

Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work?  And please describe in detail.  And can you please include a photo? I mostly write in my home office, which since the start of this pandemic has become both my writing office and my day-job office. That was challenging for a while because I was doing both not only at the same desk but also on the same computer. Work was quickly stifling my writing life. When I entered my office in the early mornings, I found the desk crowded by notepads and sticky notes, my computer cluttered with work documents and windows.

Finally, earlier this year, I brought in a second desk and second computer, so that I can keep my writing separate from my job. It’s made all the difference.

Although I put words on the page in my home office, a fair amount of my writing is drafted in part in my head while running or going for a walk or driving. Movement is always a surefire way to unblock the ideas when they’re stuck. Running especially is so effective that I barely make it a few blocks before I have so many ideas, I worry slightly that I’ll forget some of them before the run is over.

Occasionally I draft stories by hand first, in which case I write in bed or in the kitchen or in coffee shops. But mostly I compose at the computer.

What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? My habit for many years has been to write early in the morning before switching gears to go to my day job. I get up by 4:30, turn on the coffee maker, feed the cat (Zaa), and then get to work.  After the cat finishes his breakfast, he comes and joins me, sitting in my lap while I write at my computer. Most mornings I write for at least three hours.

Not since graduate school, have I been able to listen to music while I write. I guess coffee shops are the one exception, but I don’t write in coffee shops very often.

Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference.  This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer. Since I already mentioned “Lifecycle of an Ungrateful Daughter,” I’ll include an excerpt from that story. A little background information about this story: it’s written in second-person and composed of sections tracing the daughter’s life from birth to 25 when the daughter writes a fictional story that is her attempt to communicate with her mother in a way she’s never been able to, but the mother refuses to read it.

Nineteenth Year

She called to thank you for a package of Halloween treats you sent to her at college. You received a package, too, not directly from her, but from her school’s Psychology department—a questionnaire you were asked to fill out in order to help psychologists study families with a history of depression. The letter accompanying the questionnaire explained that by participating you would be helping your daughter complete her quota of research projects she had to participate in as a component of her grade in her Psychology 101 course. You did not mention this package because it embarrassed and angered you and because you had already disposed of it. You’d done enough to support her. You’d protected her from your mother, so that she didn’t see just how bad depression could get. Maybe you believed there was nothing she’d ever needed that you hadn’t made sure she had.

Or did you know that wasn’t true? Did you know but felt incapable of giving anything more?

Maybe all you could see was what she had that you had not. Thus, you believed you deserved a thank-you for all of that—a thank-you for giving her a good home, so she could grow up to amount to something; a thank-you for the money it would cost to house and feed her through four years of that fancy college (the scholarship didn’t cover everything); a thank-you for spending every extra penny you had on your children, so their lives could be better than yours. You wanted her to realize she’d had so many opportunities you never did—that it was not simply that you were dumb or country. You wanted some credit for who she’d become and all that she’d accomplished. She wouldn’t be anywhere today if you had let her melt in the sun like an ice-cream cone when she was several weeks old. If you’d drank your pain away like your mother, instead of taking anti-depressants and sleeping pills. You could have.

       But what you got were tidbits about courses you wouldn’t have dreamed existed—Anthropology of Sexuality, Psychology of Humor, Queer Disturbances in Nineteenth Century British Literature.

       Her life was spooling into itself, growing hardier and tougher by the minute. Your life, which was never as hardy as hers was already, was spooling out all over the place. You tried to tell her this on the telephone. You told her you suspected her dad was having another affair. He was taking scuba diving classes now. When the training was over, his class would take a boat out to sea to scuba for real. You were not invited. 

       Your daughter asked what made you think he was having another affair—had anything suspicious happened? “Don’t you take his side,” you said. That man cheated on you, and after all you’ve done for him and for this family. “I’m not taking anybody’s side,” she said, and that was a slap in the face. She should take your side, of course. You were the victim.   

Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write?  And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? When I took Psychology in college, I was required to participate in several studies over the course of the semester; and I did indeed earn one of those participation credits by signing my mother up to receive a questionnaire about her depression. I’m not sure if my mother ever filled out the questionnaire or not, because she’s never been much for talking to me about anything, but I suspect she didn’t. We’ve been largely estranged for many years. This excerpt, and the story as a whole, hits close to home.

Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. There were most definitely cuts, but I don’t always save early drafts once I feel I’m done with a story. That’s partly because I’m the sort of writer who goes through so many drafts along the way much of the time (I number them, so “Lifecycle 1,” “Lifecycle 2,” “Lifecycle 30,” and so on) that if I don’t delete most or all of them, my computer is a cluttered mess.

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