Inspiration and Writing

Inspiration and Writing

By Catherine Bellizzi

Inspiration for writing can come from the most unusual places. Even from something as misunderstood and anxiety-causing as assisted living.

As I sat visiting my elderly aunt in her small apartment in the assisted living facility she had just moved into, I got the idea for my novel, The 86-Year-Old Orphan. Here she was surrounded by aides, assistants, and fellow residents, but was sometimes alone too, an orphan from society. I started thinking of how full her life had been with husband and children, school and church and how much simpler life was now at this age and in this place. Not that she was upset with how things had turned out. She still had her sunny disposition and sense of humor. It always amazed me. But then, I guess once you’ve been through The Great Depression, World War II, the assassination of a president, and 9/11, assisted living was a breeze.  

I thought about the young woman she once was, the woman who no one at this facility who knew her now could even imagine. I guess that’s how it is when you meet an old woman for the first time. You almost feel like she was plopped down on earth in this form, gray, wrinkled, incapacitated. You never think of her running for a bus, dancing at a club, carefully applying mascara on her thick, full lashes before a big date, reading fashion magazines to follow all the latest trends, so she’ll make just the right impression at her job. You don’t imagine she had toned arms and legs she used to show off in the summer or a small waist she would accentuate with belted coats in the winter. You don’t think about nor can you envision the young, vibrant, beautiful woman she was 50 or 60 years before.

I wanted to write about that woman now and that woman then. I wanted to write about women aging, how you go from “cute, young thing” getting lots of attention to someone mature, someone people don’t notice like they used to, someone who sometimes feels invisible. I wanted to tell the story of women of my aunt’s generation, women who counted. They worked, raised children, they made a difference.

They were brave and ahead of their time in so many ways. They were women who are rarely given credit for paving the way for the generations of women who followed. I wanted people to know that they weren’t always old, that they had had full, interesting lives before time had changed them into the senior citizens they now presented to the world.

My novel started pouring out of me during these visits. It was about my aunt, but it was also about my mother and other women who came of age in the 1940s. I wanted to explore their lives from youth and vigor to aging and limited horizons. At first, I was focusing solely on Tessie, the heroine of the story. I didn’t want to drift too far from her by dwelling too much on other characters. But as I wrote more, it almost seemed like new, different characters and their personalities just jumped out of me and onto the page, each with her own voice and style of communicating. It would surprise me. I would sit back from my keyboard and think, “Gee where did she come from?” From writer’s workshops and conferences I’ve attended, I have found this is a common occurrence with other writers too.  You don’t always know where inspiration comes from, you are just grateful it comes.  

My book took longer than I expected it to, partly because as I continued to talk with other women and new friends, new ideas would come to me. I would “write” them down in my phone for future reference and began to incorporate them into what had already been written. I began to wonder if I would ever finish. But then came the pandemic. Suddenly, my business had slowed and practically everything was closed. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to be. I could happily devote three uninterrupted months to finishing up the story of Tessie. I guess for me that is the silver lining in all that has happened so far in 2020.

None of us plan to get old. It’s just not on the agenda. When we’re young, we rarely think about the last chapters of our life and when we do, we usually dream of golf courses and warm weather, surrounded by perfect grandchildren. But still it often seems like some distant mirage way in the future. Then one day we look in the mirror, searching for that lovely young woman we used to see there and she’s nowhere to be found. But you hope as time goes by that you can accept the new face you see in your reflection and appreciate the laughter, sadness, worry, surprise, excitement, and joy now etched on your face, telling the story of your life. A meaningful story full of life, love, and laughter. A story worth telling.

 

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Catherine Bellizzi’s new novel, The 86-Year-Old Orphan, was inspired by her aunt and her sunny outlook during the final chapter of her life in assisted living. Drawing from her and the other strong women in her life, Catherine has created a novel about growing older and embracing the journey.

Catherine also wrote, The Christmas Bear, a children’s story. Writing has been part of her life for many years, first in her career in public relations, then as the focus of her own business, a website devoted to locating business seminars. Catherine had been working on The 86-Year-Old Orphan for some time, but in the “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” department, her novel finally saw its completion when she was afforded a three-month span of uninterrupted time during the recent pandemic. 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/XmasBearBook

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorcathy/

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips