Author Lisa McKay

Author Lisa McKay is a psychologist who specializes in stress, trauma and resilience. She currently lives in Laos. Her memoir, Love At The Speed Of Email, is her second book. Last week, she blogged about how her memoir had too much God for secular publishers, not enough for Christian ones–which resulted in her decision to self-publish her book. Today she talks more about her writing experience.

Tell us about your new book.

Love At The Speed Of Email is the story of an old-fashioned courtship made possible by modern technology.

Lisa looks as if she has it made. She has turned her nomadic childhood and forensic psychology training into a successful career as a stress management trainer for humanitarian aid workers. She lives in Los Angeles, travels the world, and her first novel has just been published to some acclaim. But as she turns 31, Lisa realizes that she is still single, constantly on airplanes, and increasingly wondering where home is and what it really means to commit to a person, place, or career. When an intriguing stranger living on the other side of the world emails her out of the blue, she must decide whether she will risk trying to answer those questions. Her decision will change her life.

Your first book was a novel, why did you choose to write a memoir this time around?

I didn’t intend for this second book to be a memoir. In fact, I was working on a novel on human trafficking when my husband, Mike, and I became engaged. But as we began to plan our wedding I found it increasingly difficult to flip in and out of such vastly different worlds – the happiness of the one I was living in and the harshness of the one I was trying to write about.

After months of trying to force myself to persevere with the novel, one day I stopped long enough to ask myself what I really wanted to be writing about. The answer to that question wasn’t trafficking. It was exploring the idea of home.

I’d spent my childhood living in countries as diverse as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. I carried Australian and Canadian passports. I was living in Los Angeles working for a non-profit organization that provided psychological support to humanitarian workers worldwide. I was hopelessly confused as to where home was. Perhaps, I thought, I could write my way towards clarity. That’s when I started working on the memoir.

What part of this memoir did you find hardest to write?

I had been involved in several long distance relationships that had not ended happily-ever-after before I met Mike. I found it difficult to write about these previous romantic relationships – particularly ways in which I had failed others and myself.

One chapter, in particular, I must have completely rewritten a dozen times. I went over that story over and over again, trying to pin down what had happened during that time and especially how I had contributed to the unhealthy dynamics of that relationship.

It was a difficult process, but I couldn’t leave those parts of the story out. Those relationships and some of the mistakes I made helped shape the person I had become when Mike and I met.

What was one of your favorite scenes to write? Why?

I loved writing the scenes that poked fun at my parents – particularly my mother. She’s just full of good material. I had a lot of fun writing the scene where I introduced Mike to my parents.

Mike and I had been writing letters to each other for three months when he flew to Australia so that we could meet in person. When I picked him up in Brisbane airport and we met for the first time we had never even spoken to each other before. After we met in the airport we drove back to my parent’s place and I dropped him right in the middle of my entire family. What happened next was … ridiculous. I won’t say any more except to tell you that it involved rubber chickens.

How did your friends and family feel about appearing in your book?

So far everyone seems to have taken it well. I only changed two characters names – everyone else appeared under their own name – so before I finalized the manuscript I did send it to almost everyone who has a significant “speaking” role with a list of page numbers where they appeared and a request to let me know if they had any questions or concerns. I didn’t give them veto power, per se, but I did want them to see what I’d written and to hear their thoughts.

Funnily enough, a couple of my family members were a bit concerned about how other family members might feel about their portrayal, but no one was concerned with how they came across. In fact, the person I was most worried might be hurt thanked me for portraying them in such a good light.

The trickiest part of navigating this wasn’t with family, it was with friends and previous boyfriends. However contacting previous love interests to let them know what I’d written about them before I made it public actually proved to be a healing exercise for me. (You can read a whole post on this topic here).

To learn more, visit www.lisamckaywriting.com.

Next up, on Friday, part 2 of Q&A with Lisa McKay.