Getting Creative With the Truth: Writing Blue Life By Mundy McLaughlin

“He is creative with the truth” was a phrase my father used to describe a nephew who, from the age of five, told incredible fictions about his adventures. One involved going deep down into the sea in a submersible when he had really been on a conventional beach vacation with his family.

Blue Life, while at its heart is about female friendship, draws on my 7 years of “go-go” dancing in New Jersey in the 70s and 80s. This was a particular culture of exotic dancing where the law required the dancer to wear a two-piece outfit and pantyhose. These rules were frequently broken. Women used it as a flexible way of making money to feed their pursuits as artists, journalists, or performers. Or just to pay the bills.  

Blue Life also draws on my years in the New York artworld and as an enthusiastic participant in the club and music scene of the 70s and 80s.  

This does not mean that it is a memoir.

In the months leading up to publication, I was grateful to hear an interview with Margaret Atwood where she talked about having to wait until people she knew died before she could write them as fictional characters. Another famous author bristled in a radio interview when asked how the principal character in her most recent novel resembled her.

I always knew when working as a “dancer,” as we called ourselves, that I would write about it some day. As the decades passed, and I had reflected on the experience through the lens of feminist and Marxist theory, the desire to write about it grew. But working as a lawyer, I knew that the time frame and context of the story would reveal that I had worked in this field and that, fair or not, this would undermine my “reputation” and in turn, my ability to earn a living.  So, I waited until I retired and pulled out my journals and notes from that period and started to write.

It was important to me to portray the “go-go” world with both its positive aspects as well as its troubling ones.  I created two female characters who, although from similar backgrounds, are very different. One is more vulnerable than the other, and this helps bring out how the dancing life might impact negatively on a more fragile woman.

Another priority for me was to re-create the time and place. It was a time when letters were the means of getting a message to someone, when the cost of long-distance calls made them prohibitive, when you had to keep calling someone until they were home because this was before answering machines, before voice mail, and of course before cell phones. 

A friend might call up to your fourth-floor apartment at midnight imploring you to go see some new band. It was also a time when living in the lower east side of Manhattan meant rock-bottom rents so artists and musicians could get apartments. Most of us lived within blocks of each other and food was cheap too – people regularly ate at the very affordable Indian restaurants on 6th street or grabbed a slice of pizza for dinner. The proximity and the environment helped create a community of rebel musicians and artists. This period in New York City is often portrayed as depraved and frightening. I wanted to show how vibrant and exciting it was.

I went back to school to learn the craft of writing fiction. My high school art teacher thought I should just be able to write a novel. I reminded her that we had both gone to art school. I struggled through the criticisms received in workshops and mentor feedback essential to becoming a writer and the development of Blue Life. One of the first breakthroughs was to start writing in first person present tense to emphasize the immediacy of the time and the subject matter.

Every writer has their own process, but I started writing scenes to free my imagination and “pen” from concerns of plot development. Eventually I started to string these scenes together into a novel-length story and had some input at a writer’s retreat that helped me with the eventual arc, as I struggled with how a two-character arc might differ from a one-character one. (Simply put, the “climax” should happen to both characters at the same time and fundamentally change both their paths going forward.)  

I recently heard a writer talk about how it was important for them to be excited about what they are writing – otherwise the writing is not exciting for the reader. For me, the excitement of writing fiction is weaving real-life experience – be it the observation of a bird taking flight or a heart breaking – with imagination and story-making. 

Kazuo Ishiguro once said in an interview that he struggled with his editors and readers to keep mystery in his writing. This resonated with me as I frequently bucked back against the requests of editors and readers to spell things out. One of Blue Life’s mysteries is why the two main characters stay loyal friends until the end, when there are so many reasons for them to drift apart. Mystery is one of the joys of being creative with the truth, and joy in the writer hopefully translates to joy in the reader.

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About Mundy McLaughlin
From 1980 to 1986 Mundy McLaughin was a member of Group Material, a New York City-based collective that organized exhibits that illuminated social and political themes. Her photographic and sculptural work examined the relationship between fantasy and reality in North American culture, gender relations and commercialism.

Mundy eventually became well regarded in the field of workplace human rights and equity issues. She holds degrees in Common and Civil Law from McGill University and a Masters in Law from Osgoode Hall Law School. She has also completed a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Having spent time in New York City, Montreal and Ottawa, Mundy now lives in rural Ontario.

Blue Life is her first novel.

Follow her on Insta @mundyyvette

BLUE LIFE

Blue Life follows the divergent paths of an art student and an aspiring actress who meet as performers in the legendary “Go-Go” dancing scene of late 1970s New Jersey. With their shared experiences Luna and Didi form an instant connection, but while Luna’s path ascends through her work as a burgeoning artist in New York City, Didi’s life spirals downwards.

A compelling story of friendship, loyalty and love as well as the devastating effects of mental illness, Blue Life offers a unique look at the seedy New Jersey go-go scene, the vibrant clubs of New York City in the late ’70s and early ’80s and the East Village’s vibrant art scene.

Blue Life transports readers to a unique time when everything felt like it should be possible, offering an unflinching look behind the perceived boundaries of friendship and the limits of sexual power with a cast of memorable characters whose individual stories live with you long after the story is over.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing