Hav A Sole

A Conversation with Wendy Adamson

Over the years, I've noticed that writers who are writing their personal stories often have one primary fear.

Exposure.

The fear of exposing themselves and other people—and not knowing how it will be received.

In the feature author interview this month, Wendy Adamson speaks about facing these fears and how she moved through them. Now with her second memoir out, she is blazing trails for anyone who might take that bold step.

A prequel to her first book, Incorrigible is a coming-of-age memoir about a teenager who is reeling from the devastation of her mother's suicide, landing her in the arms of addiction and the criminal justice system.

Wendy says she knew deep down that she is here on earth to tell her story, and that it has the potential to help others and change lives.

Scroll down to read the full interview.


With over two decades of experience in the field of mental health and substance abuse treatment, Wendy Adamson possesses a deep understanding of the recovery process. She has held many positions throughout her career, but currently she works in Business Development at Polaris Teen Center, an inpatient facility that helps adolescents who are suffering with mental health issues while providing them a safe place to heal.

For the past seven years, Wendy has also headed up Business Development for her son’s nonprofit, Hav A Sole, an organization that has partnered with major NBA teams, and corporations like Nike to deliver over 30,000 high quality sneakers to at-risk youth, and more recently started a mentorship program for marginalized youth. In 2020 Rikki and Wendy’s inspiring story was featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Wendy is a published author of two memoirs, Mother Load and Incorrigible, where she documents her own struggles with addiction and mental health issues and the long arduous journey of healing and repair that came as a result of getting sober.

 

KARIN GUTMAN: Tell us about this new book of yours!

WENDY ADAMSON: My new book is called Incorrigible, which is actually a prequel to Mother Load, my first book. This one starts with me visiting my mother in a mental hospital as a small child, and recounts her suicide at seven years old and shows how unexpressed grief and loss unconsciously directs my life.

As a typical California kid of the 70s I take the reader through my teenage angst and self-destruction until I end up in the same hospital that my mother was in. Using alcohol and drugs to self-medicate I am eventually labeled INCORRIGIBLE by the courts and plucked from a lifestyle of privilege and introduced to the criminal justice system.

KARIN: I notice that your first book follows your journey as an adult, and then you follow it in the second book with the story of your childhood.

WENDY: I had to write my adult story first. I would attribute that to a health scare I had some years ago which made me feel an urgency to finish that book. So, after more than ten years I was finally able to get Mother Load published. It was only later, that I realized that I had glossed over much of my teenage years. And since I work in an adolescent mental health treatment center, I knew first hand that many teenagers were struggling, especially during Covid19 and they would be able to relate to a book like mine.

KARIN: What was the writing process like for this book? In what way was it similar or different from the first book?

WENDY: The writing process has become somewhat easier for me as I have developed a discipline. I go to bed early and wake up early so I can write. The structure developed as a result of having a day job. Over time, I learned that once I start working at the job, it can be hard getting back into the writing flow.

This book was also different because the Covid19 lockdown gave me more time. Like many people during 2020 I was anxious when Covid19 hit, not to mention everything else that was happening in our country. The chaos and uncertainty in some ways felt like my childhood, and I felt like I was on high alert. I don’t know if this makes any sense, but writing became a place to channel my energy in order to get the angst outside of me and onto paper. I strongly believe that writing is a therapeutic tool, but during the isolation of 2020, I found it to be absolutely necessary in getting through my day.

I also have more experience now and know that in order to keep developing the manuscript it helps to have a trusted editor giving you feedback along the way.

KARIN: What are you learning about your creative process?

WENDY: This may sound strange, but I’ve learned that writing about early life experience can be a portal to my ancestors. In writing Incorrigible, I was able to explore the relationship I had with my father. In some ways he always loomed in my consciousness as a monster, but the more I wrote, the more I began to see my own behavior as an unruly teenager. I was not an easy to kid to raise. Since I grew up in a family with a lot of secrets, I felt betrayed and wanted to make my father pay for his mistakes. In writing, as I dove deep into my childhood, I invoked unpleasant memories of how I treated my father. As a result of dissecting many of my actions, unsuspected empathy welled up in my heart for my father. And that was a gift I did not expect.

KARIN: That's incredible.

How easily do your memories come back to you as you write? Are you having to use your imagination a lot to fill in the details of the childhood scenes?


WENDY: Often I get flooded by memories when I write the scenes, but yes, I also use my imagination as well. In writing scenes of Camarillo State Mental Hospital or Sylmar Juvenile Hall I researched online and found articles and pictures of the institutions. This helped me immensely with the details of the environment I was in at the time. With dialogue, I don't remember every word that was said, but I try to capture the essence of the conversation as well as the dynamic between the two people who are talking. I also had the benefit of talking to my sister and brother to see what they remembered as I pieced the chapters together. Sometimes my timeline was off as I am going through dramatic events, and there were a lot of them in my childhood. But I think most writers of memoir use their imagination when it comes to early memories.

If only I knew I was going to be writing about all this one day, I would have taken better notes.

KARIN: Tell us about what you do to market your book, which is such a different mindset than writing.

WENDY: A marketing mindset feels like the other end of the spectrum from creative writing. It feels endless, and since I don’t have a publicist, I’m always questioning if I’m doing enough to get my book out there. There’s just so much to do. Come up with content for social media posts, composing a press release, trying to get on a podcast, a blog or organizing a virtual book launch. All of the details in marketing take me far away from my writing process, and if I’m not careful, I can go down the rabbit hole. Right now, I am considering hiring an intern to help me with details of social media, reaching out to podcasts and such. I just don’t have the time to do it all.

KARIN: Do you have a sense of how the first book is doing? I’m curious about what it's like to publish with a small press.

WENDY: Mother Load is selling slowly but mostly by word of mouth. I have a five-year contract with my publisher and at the end of that we can discuss renewing the contract or I can take it somewhere else.

I have a friend who published a book six years ago. She wasn’t happy with her first publisher, so after the contract was over she brought it to my publisher and was able to create a new book cover and add two chapters. It's going to be re-released again in the fall.

KARIN: Are you working on anything new? Do you have a sense of where your writing will go from here?

WENDY: Yes, I am deep into book three which is about my insane twenties. Seriously, if you’ve lived a life like mine, all that ‘drama’ makes for good content. Besides, it’s very satisfying to take the pain and struggle and turn it into something that might be able to help someone going through the same thing.

KARIN: How does it feel to have your life exposed so completely? I know this was a source of great fear in the early stages of your writing.

WENDY: The fear of being judged kept me small and not taking risks most of my life. I’m at a point now where I still get scared of exposing myself, but I do it anyway. Again, this kind of drive comes from a deep desire to use my story to inspire others to change the trajectory of their lives. After all, if I can do it, so can you.

I often wonder if I had read an author I could have related to when I was a kid, would it have made a difference? I know people that say that a certain book changed their lives, so why not?

KARIN: What would you say to someone who has a story to tell but is afraid of the exposure?

WENDY: I would tell the person I was afraid of the exposure as well because of a deep-seated shame that I carried into all aspects of my life. It was that shame that kept me from telling my story, the same shame that wanted me to stay small. It blocked my creativity, sabotaged my goals, and kept me from pursuing my dreams.

When you speak your truth and expose yourself you’re becoming the alchemist of your own life. It's challenging old thought patterns and constructs that have boxed you in. For me, the biggest payoff of all was that the shame didn’t own me anymore and I was finally free to pursue my dreams.

KARIN: What would you say to someone who has a story to tell but thinks they “aren’t a writer”?

WENDY: I would say I understand, and tell them I was a high-school drop-out with a rap-sheet and didn’t think I could get anything published. I told myself that no one would ever care about what I have to say. I had to challenge all of my old beliefs and take contrary action by doing multiple writing workshops with you, Karin. I had to have a safe place to write, because in the deepest part of me I knew I am here to tell my story. And in spite of the critic that tries to convince me with great authority that I am not a writer, I have been able to publish two books. That would have never happened if I would have listened to my head.



Buy the book!

To learn more about Wendy Adamson visit her
site.

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A Conversation with Wendy Adamson

I'm thrilled to share that Wendy Adamson, a former member of the Unlocking Your Story workshop, is coming out with her debut memoir MOTHER LOAD on May 12th from Rothco Press. It is truly soul satisfying to witness a story grow from its tiny seeds into a full-blown narrative that can now be shared with the world. Hers is an affecting story of recovery and triumph from the dark depths of addiction. In our interview she shares how it feels to expose her truth to the world and how having a sacred space early on in the creative process was vital.


With over twenty years of experience, Wendy Adamson is a seasoned professional in the field of mental health and drug and alcohol rehabilitation. She not only has a vast knowledge of addiction, but as a sober woman, she has a deep understanding of the recovery process as well. With her Certification in Alcohol-Drug abuse from UCLA Wendy has been able to help hundreds of suffering individuals get the help they need.

Wendy is also a dedicated activist who has been instrumental in directing the vision of Hav A Sole, a nonprofit whose mission it is to deliver high-quality tennis shoes to homeless and at-risk youth. Using her writing, marketing and outreach strategies, Wendy has helped turn Hav A Sole into a thriving organization that celebrates Los Angeles as a caring and connected metropolis by building community through volunteerism.

As an inspiring speaker, Wendy shares a heartfelt message of hope as she candidly talks about her own addiction, before launching into how she turned her life around. With long-term sobriety, Wendy believes that only by telling our personal stories of recovery can we heal the shame associated with mental illness and addiction. Wendy is a passionate communicator whose goal is to invoke social change by de-stigmatizing the disease.  

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In her new memoir, Mother Load, Wendy shows us how a little league, PTA mom can get dragged down the rabbit hole of methamphetamine when she has a psychotic break, shoots her husband’s mistress and ends up in county jail. 

That was over twenty-five years ago and thankfully, Wendy is still sober. For someone who seemed destined to end up a sad statistic of drug addiction, the fact that Wendy not only survived, but is a thriving, productive individual is a testament that transformation is possible.

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Karin Gutman: Oh my, congratulations. I am beyond thrilled for you! Tell me, how long have you been working on your memoir — MOTHER LOAD — that will soon be released?
 
Wendy Adamson: Thank you so much, Karin. Honestly, I first knew I was supposed to write Mother Load 20 years ago. But it took 10 years to actually start working on it and another 10 years to finish it.
 
Karin: Can you share what it’s about?  
 
Wendy: In Mother Load, I show how as a little league mom I got dragged down the rabbit hole when in a drug-induced psychotic break, I shot my husband’s mistress in the arm which landed me in the county jail, when I was 38 years old, the same age as my mother was when she had her psychotic break and drowned herself in a bathtub. I was 7 at the time. While I was determined never to be like my crazy mother, it seemed as if I was following in her footsteps. 
 
Mother Load is a story about my undoing, and what it took to put my life back together again, so I could go on to become the mother I never had when I was a kid.

Karin: You were in the Unlocking Your Story workshop early on in the process. In what way did that writing space support you?
 

Wendy: Having a safe writing space was critical in my development as a writer. I had so much shame about shooting my husband’s mistress and the mistakes I had made as a mother, that it took me attending several workshops before I started to reveal some parts of my story in the class. Meanwhile, the structure, prompts and valuable guidance, made me feel more at ease as I developed some writing skills.

I remember the first time I shared my pages about the night I went to jail. I was so scared of being judged that my heart was pounding inside my chest. When I was finished reading I could barely look at anyone. But as we went around the room, all the women were so incredibly supportive with their feedback that it ultimately allowed me to become even more vulnerable in the class.
 
Karin: What were the most challenging aspects of writing your story?
 
Wendy: I grew up in a household where we were told never to talk about my mother’s mental illness. So, keeping secrets was a behavior I learned from early on. Even though my mother and father were long gone, to break the silence was a constant internal battle for me. There were times I felt like I was undoing the pathways that had been hard-wired inside my brain. I had to commit to sitting down every morning before work and write my truth no matter what.
 
What helped keep me focused was a deep desire to help others who were struggling with addiction or mental illness. I have read plenty of books about horrible parents written by the children, but I had never read a story of a mother who becomes determined to heal the family’s wounds. Since I work in an adolescent mental health treatment center, I knew it was a story that parents needed to hear.  
 
Karin: What have you discovered about your story through the writing process, something that you might not have been conscious of at the beginning?
 
Wendy: When I got sober I was extremely fluent in Victim-ese, blaming everybody else for what was wrong with my life. Through my speaking in juvenile halls or prisons and through my writing, I have been able to assign a new narrative to all the adversity I have been through. Nothing is wasted if I’m willing to use it as a tool to help someone else.
 
Karin: I believe that writing our stories is transformative. Is that your experience, too? If so, in what way have you been transformed?
 
Wendy: Sometimes when I was writing I would feel a conviction of being aligned with something greater than myself. It filled me with confidence instead of my usual self-doubt. I think the transformation occurred as I began to discover a deeply committed and focused woman inside me, who would go to any lengths to get the book done.
 
Karin: They say that writing is rewriting. How did you approach the editing process and getting the manuscript to a place where you were ready to share with an agent?
 
Wendy: I made so many mistakes along the way and did everything completely backwards. At first, I got an agent with a book proposal before Mother Load was even completed. While some of the publishers said they liked the story, they also said I didn’t have a strong enough platform to sell it. After a year of rejections, I let go of the agent and got busy finishing the book. As I lasered in on the emotional thread, a cleaner, more developed version of the story began to reveal itself to me. When I had a strong enough first draft I hired an editor to help me go through everything and sent pages to her every week. During that process there were entire chapters I had to eliminate because they didn’t move the story forward or it didn’t reveal anything new about the character. After I was done I tried submitting the completed book this time.
 
Karin: How did you land a publishing deal?
 
Wendy: After nearly 100 rejections from literary agents from New York to L.A, I was a little discouraged. Finally, I decided to submit my memoir to a small independent publisher by the name of Rothco Press. I was ecstatic when they told me they loved Mother Load and wanted to publish it.
 
Karin: How does it feel to share your life with the world? How did you get beyond any feelings of fear you might have had in exposing yourself?
 
Wendy: I still find myself vacillating between excitement, terror and fear. On the one hand, I am thrilled to have completed something that I can share with the world, but on the other hand, I still have some residual fear of being exposed. All I can say is the one thing that trumps any fear, doubt or worry is the deep desire I have to help others. There are so many individuals suffering out there like I did who need to know despite anything you’ve been through, it’s possible to heal your life.
 
Karin: Did you have to address any liability issues with people in the story who are still alive?
 
Funny you should ask. It was just last Thanksgiving that I saw my ex-husband and told him he was in my book, but that I had changed his name. He chuckled a bit at the notion that he would be in my memoir, but I’m not sure his new wife (not the one I shot) was quite that amused.  
 
I changed most of the names to avoid repercussions, but thankfully my two boys have turned into my biggest fans so I left their names the same.
 
Karin: Imagine yourself way back at the beginning of the process. What advice would you give her?
 

Wendy: Trust in the process. Find your voice and you’ll find your power.

 

Hear Wendy read an excerpt from her book at KPCC's Unheard LA.

To learn more about Wendy, visit her website and buy the book!

See all author interviews

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