According to J. C. Small of Mike and Molly, instead of winning a spelling bee with the New York Times, a writer needs to dig deeper to find success. This episode inspired me, and the phrase at the end of this scene became my writing motto, my mantra.

Molly meets her favorite author and inspiration, J. C. Small. She gives Small her manuscript about a poor boy living in Mumbai. Small reads the first few pages and tells Molly it was the worst writing she ever read.

Molly states she gave up everything. She quit her job as a fourth-grade teacher to be a writer.

JC: I am saying, Oh, God, it drives me crazy, people that think they’re writers just ’cause they have a fancy laptop and a cushy seat in Starbucks. 

Molly: Hey, for your information, my laptop is running Windows ’95. And I wrote this at my mom’s kitchen table because I still live with her. 

JC: How old are you? 

Molly: Like, early, middle-late, late-early 30s. 

JC: And you are still living with your mother? 

Molly: Not in a weird way. I’m with my husband and her husband and my sister. 

JC: Well, for God’s sake, forget about Mumbai! Write about your own pathetic life. 

Molly: Right! God, you’re good! I mean, I got tons of pathetic! 

JC: You’ve gotta dig deep. You know, people say that you should write about what you know, but that’s bull. You want to write what you don’t want people to know. 

Writing what you don’t want people to know. Is that the secret to becoming a good writer, to write your secrets? According to J. C. Small, a good writer needs to expose their deep secrets, or in the case of J. C., the secrets of what others did to her.

Later in the episode, J. C. briefly alludes to Molly the story of her being molested by an uncle.

My new mantra, “Write what you don’t want people to know,” I repeat in my mind daily when I place details of my unpleasant past on the page.

They say, or should I say therapists say, that writing down your memories of past pain helps heal trauma. That’s how I started writing from a therapist’s suggestion after being treated for a nervous breakdown at a mental hospital.

While I dig deeper as a writer, the problem I found is I am not having a memory. I am reliving the trauma. When I type, everything comes out in present tense. Then in the rewrite, I change it to past tense. After I accomplished this, I discovered 75 percent of the verbs were “was,” and half of the remaining verbs were ‘had.”

The average sentence I have rewritten is a minimum of five times, an average of ten times, and a maximum of plus 15 times. Each time reliving the moment as I try to find the right past-tense verbs.

Writing my memoir has been emotionally exhausting and energy-draining. Something in me tells me to keep writing and press forward. My former therapist stated that my background is highly unusual and unique, unique in a nonpositive way.

I keep working forward. Something inside of me tells me to finish my memoir. I know there are several events that are, not to give away the book, highly unusual. Merely thinking about those events now, 20 years, and 50 years after the events brings me intense anxiety.

I hope that finishing my book will bring completion and a conclusion to many happenings in my life story and thus relieve me of this trapped anxiety. I can say to myself, there, it is finished, and close the book for good.

Publishing my memoir will lift a heavy weight off of my shoulders. My only concern is that people will ask questions at interviews, book readings, and signings. Then my wounds will be opened all over again.

In the Mike and Molly episode, J. C. focuses on the love of her millions of readers–I could only hope for that many readers myself–and not the family members that refuse to speak to her for exposing the family secrets.

J. C.’s words to dig deeper as a writer, might seem to work in her mind, but they don’t. She acknowledges that she drinks but denies that she is an alcoholic, with piles of empty vodka bottles scattered around her home and her front stoop.

Perhaps there is no real peace as I dig deeper as a writer working on my memoir. Writing about trauma and abuse doesn’t “get it out” and evaporate away, as many therapists suggest. Whatever textbook they read or professor they heard in college classes were uninformed.

Hopefully, the “love” I receive from my readers, as J. C. puts it, makes up for the negative things about publishing. Actually, I’m not expecting love from my readers. I’ve given up on finding in my life love altogether, but positive words and compliments will, for my lonely and anxious soul, provide some relief hopefully.

Mike & Molly | Facebook

“Mike & Molly” Careful What You Dig For (TV Episode 2013) – IMDb