Katriona O'Sullivan

That's hard.

So it wasn't actually that difficult to just... To write the other way.

To write the other way.

It was in some ways.

So the good thing about academic writing is you don't feel anything.

So I'd be writing about addiction, having lived a life where addiction affected me in academia, but it wouldn't emotionally affect me at all writing it because you're so heady.

So sometimes when I am writing my books, I would have a tendency to try and escape the bad feeling attached to the writing by becoming more intellectual.

And then I have an editor who will say, get out of your head into the story.

Show, don't tell is what they say.

It does hurt, but then it also heals as well.

So like there's kind of three things that go on at the same time when I'm writing.

So it is...

painful but then it's also enlightening as well like especially for the writing that i do which all writing is non-fiction by the way so like when you read a book and it's a and it's fiction the people who've written that book have felt them feelings so it might not be it's their family but generally most good writers draw from their own emotional experiences so whether i'm writing about my mom or they're writing about a fictional mom there may also be a feeling that we've both felt anyway

But in my case, because it's my own life and my family, so I feel that painful feeling, but I also feel like a kind of processing of it and a deeper understanding of myself and that thing.

And then alongside that is my, how do I make this a great,

No.

So I would never say to somebody who hasn't engaged in a healing process.

So say, for example, you said to me, right, I'm actually going to write my story.

And whatever is in your story, if there's stuff in it that's painful, the first thing I'd say to you is, have you done some work on that?

I would say to anybody who's thinking about writing a memoir, particularly about their own life, be okay with yourself.