L. L. H. Harms’ Paper Therapist

On The Table Read Magazine, “the best entertainment eBook magazine UK“, author of The Aftertime, L. L. H. Harms, shares how writing is a paper therapist and what inspired her creative writing journey.

 

Written by L. L. H. Harms

http://llhharms.com/

People ask me why and when I started writing. I can remember the exact date and where I was. It was December 8th, and I was in the fifth grade. The night before I lay on our living room floor, patiently waiting for the news to end. There was only one television in the house and there was a pecking order as to who was able to pick what we would  watch My father sat in his chair and his only comments were grunts and half laughs at the different news reports.

Feeling Isolated

The news ended with a segment on the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was then that my nine-year-old self learned of the trapped sailors on the U.S.S Arizona and the navy’s inability to rescue them. For days, the tap, tap, tap of the S.O.S calls could be heard by the radio men on land. These men were helpless to save their fellow sailors trapped on the ship resting on the bottom of the harbor. The doomed men’s calls for rescue continued until there was silence. My father filled me in on all the details as he seemed to be clueless that he was speaking to a child.

I did not sleep that night and was unable to concentrate the following day at school. I sat at my desk unable to talk to anyone about how upset I was.  I started to write. One paragraph was the start of my journey into writing. Those four or five sentences expressed my fear, sadness, and uncertainty about my world. One simple paragraph released all the emotions that I was feeling and bonded them to the white paper with the blue lines that lay in front of me.

At the time, I had no idea that anyone else in the world felt like I did.  None of my classmates seemed to have watched the news from the previous night. None seemed bothered or upset but instead carried on like every other day. I felt isolated.

Writing Emotions

Time passed, I continued to write down my feelings of anger, joy, loneliness, and hope under the misguided thought that I was alone and that no one else understood.  Fearing that someone might find my paper therapist, I wove these feelings into poems and stories. This was an attempt to hide my ownership of those written emotions. To be able to say, “Oh no, I don’t feel that way. Those are the characters’ feelings.” Who in the world could possibly understand me? Who in the world could possibly have the same feelings and fears that I had? The paper in front of me gave solace. In my childhood world, where I had no control, the blank paper offered me the opportunity to create worlds and determine their outcomes.

I now take ownership of those emotions and my point of view. However, writing is still a solitary exercise; no writing groups for me, I write for myself and for you, an audience of two. I have always imagined when I write that I am sitting in the woods at night, and one person sits across from me on the other side of the crackling campfire. I am telling you a story because you are upset, or have a question, or you just want to be entertained. I hope to offer you the same comfort that I found all those years ago or possibly the connection of ideas. If not connection or comfort, then maybe make you feel uncomfortable with an unfamiliar point of view that forces you to reflect; reflect on the unfamiliar world I have created for you. 

The Aftertime

This is why I wrote The Aftertime, a novel about a magical knife that has the power to heal as long as it is never used in anger.  A knife that is handed down for generation after generation through one family but is lost because of the actions of a twelve-year-old boy named Zack.

I want to hand this book down to my children, along with the idea that within each of us, we all have the power of this knife. Our words and actions can be used to stand up for what we believe in, but if used incorrectly, these words and actions can be turned into weapons. Instead of handing down a physical knife, I want to hand down the power and beauty of words to my children and beyond.

In this novel, there are two timelines, one in the mid1700’s and the other in present day Virginia. In both time periods, the characters face the same issues as the other. The same issues we,  young and old, face today. The characters deal with bullying, fear, and racism, to name a few.  I hope that if someone reads The Aftertime they understand that they do belong, that I wrote a story to let them know that someone else has the feelings they are experiencing. They are not alone like nine-year old me, all those years ago.

This is the power of writing. My superpower that I discovered as a child. Like the knife in The Aftertime, this power must be respected. With a few characters typed on a phone, people can be sent into a frenzy. It can be used for calls for violence or used for segregating people into “us and them.” I know that bonding the ink to the page is scary, when you lay out for the world to see your beliefs or those things that cause you the most pain. Writing can be intimidating, opening yourself up to the judgments and critiques of strangers. Writing this blog leaves me feeling vulnerable yet connected to you and now a world I would normally have no contact with. I hope that my paper therapist can help you like it helped me all those years ago. Reaching out to you in that place where your feelings are the most exposed, scared or alone to simply say, someone recognizes those emotions and understands. 

L. L. H. Harms

For years, LLH Harms has written books, stories, and poems and simply placed them on a shelf. With encouragement from one of her children, she has finally decided to share her writing with all of us. The Aftertime is her debut novel. A second project, a picture book, is forthcoming. She lives in Virginia with her family.

Find more from L. L. H. Harms now:

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3MyWISf

Kindle: https://amzn.to/4gd46Af

Paperback: https://amzn.to/3TneZpo

Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3XfV1hl

Website: http://llhharms.com/

Social media links:

https://www.instagram.com/llhharms/

https://www.facebook.com/llhharms

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