C S Queen - Another Interview

For the second time, Open Shelf caught up with author C S Queen to find out more. 

This time the focus was on Everything Was Fine, Until She Was Born. If you can't wait, you will find it HERE.

Your memoir uses bite size chapters that each stand alone while still building toward a larger emotional journey. What made you choose this structure, and how did it shape the way you told your story?

This book began as a project proposed by a counselor I was seeing at the Veterans Administration. I struggle with anxiety because my mind doesn’t stop dwelling on the past. She suggested I write out the memories that I think about most. Good and bad.

I wrote so many in one week that she said “You could write a book!”. I kept writing for several years then after I retired, I felt brave enough to publish my stories.

During the formatting process, I decided to gather a poll from reader forums. I asked whether I should put all my stories into chronological order then fill in the gaps to make it flow. Most people advised that these “fillers” could make the story drag on or lose the readers interest.

So, I left them short and to the point.

The book layers moments from different ages and experiences in a way that feels textured but never overwhelming. How did you approach balancing these emotional beats so they built gradually rather than all at once?

I had each story categorised from funny (light) to traumatizing (heavy).

I tried to place my youngest stories first so readers would understand my emotions in the latter parts. I wanted them to see what made me, ME.

While working on the flow, I felt like I needed a breather in between certain chapters. I inserted the light and fun stories (military stories) to give readers a break, too.

The shifts in year feel seamless and purposeful, almost like turning pages in a photo album. How did you decide when to move forward or backward in time, and what effect did you hope those transitions would have on the reader?

I visualized it as a movie.

If you have ever seen Saving Private Ryan, the story wouldn’t be as powerful if you only saw the end scene where the main character is so emotional standing by the grave. He asks his wife for confirmation that he was a good man.

None of this would make sense without context.

When I wrote the pages with my most recent memories, I wanted readers to understand why certain moments had such an impact. I couldn’t do that without showing them a traumatic moment from years ago. A flashback provides the memory that made the present emotional, otherwise the readers won’t feel how I felt.

For example, seeing real snow wouldn’t have been significant unless I had my panic attack in Japan.

Several chapters revisit childhood moments with vivid detail - the lanai, the spam and rice, the caretaker’s voice. How did you access and recreate these early memories so clearly?

I have a photographic memory. I remember places and sounds like pictures that I can pull out and see them again as if it were yesterday. But it’s not always as clear as actually being there.

For example, I remember the lanai in Hawaii had a very 70’s style structure. It was held up by thin, metal posts with an “S” design between the bars. But, I don’t remember what colour the posts were.

I wrote what I remembered with the hope that the readers’ imagination would fill in the blanks.

The contrast between moments of safety and moments of volatility is striking. How did you navigate writing about painful experiences while keeping the tone grounded and accessible?

As I grew older, I felt the urge to control people around me. I also wanted to have the last word in every conversation and I found myself guilt tripping the ones I loved. Readers might see bits of that in my stories.

These were attributes I inherited from my mother, which drove me away. I was becoming manipulative like her.

When I began looking at myself, I learned that these manipulative habits were the source of my pain. I had to break the vicious cycle and through faith, the only way I could do that, was to forgive her.

Then I had to forgive myself.

Forgiveness and acceptance allows me to talk about those experiences without having a complete melt down.

Rage is described almost as a character in your life, with its own personality and influence. What inspired you to give it that kind of presence in the narrative?

Yes, Rage is still a part of my life.

I speculate that my psychological defense mechanism gave Rage a personality so I could deal with it as I would a person. I could handle it as you might do with a toxic person who brings out the worst in you.

I did it so I could perceive myself as a separate person from who I was when I was angry.

It was a foothold that allowed me to forgive myself before starting anew.

Throughout the memoir, you explore the idea that people can be both good and harmful, sometimes simultaneously. How did writing these chapters shape your own understanding of that duality?

Because I struggle with this myself. Even today.

I toy with the idea of writing letters to my mother and unloading my old anger on her. I think to myself that doing this could heal our relationship and “help” her understand how she hurt me.

It would tear her apart. But then, I must ask myself what that would accomplish?

Even if it changed her, the past is still there. She cannot undo it, so why would I put that on her?

Some of us think we’re trying to help someone by hurting them. Let me rephrase that: In our minds, we justify hurting someone by telling ourselves that we’re doing it for their own good. Or, we did it to teach them a lesson. (Something similar to the line between revenge and justice in my scifi book).

Writing these chapters helped me see my actions from an outside perspective. It forced me to step back and think about the outcome of my actions by seeing the mistakes of my past. I think that was the point of my therapy, and I feel it worked.

The book acknowledges flaws and mistakes without dwelling in misery. How did you strike the balance between honesty and hopefulness?

Thank you for saying so because I was worried that my memoir conveyed me as a person who felt sorry for myself.

As a teenager, I lied to people to make them think I was someone I wasn’t. I describe in detail, hoping that it will help readers realize that these lies will never make you feel better about yourself.

Truth is, lying only made my life worse. It made me feel worse.

But hope was what kept me alive when I was at my lowest point. I wanted to make sure my stories didn’t only have doom and gloom written in it. Hope was important because without it, I wouldn’t be here now.

We previously read and reviewed Target: Remnant Trilogy. How much of your own life did you lean into for the characters in the first part with YooJin?

Oh my! Very much!

YooJin, fortunately, has a mother who was not as abusive as mine. But the Asian American lifestyle was prominent in the story. Her dialogue with the ex boyfriend, Nate, was definitely mine.

It wasn’t verbatim but I had numerous conversations with my ex husband that reflect the conversation YooJin has with Nate in the driveway. Nate’s narcissistic personality and short temper was inspired by my ex.

Her friend Phoebe is a girl I used to work with, I even described the character to look just like my old coworker. Her gay neighbor, Ken, was a neighbor I had when I lived in Nevada and his personality was as delightful as it was in Target: Remnant.

Working at the funeral home was precise, though. From answering the phone to listening to The Cure was pretty much an exact daily routine. If only I had special powers that would allow me to sit back and play Roblox!

Many chapters explore moments where you look back at your own actions with clarity and accountability. What was the most challenging part of revisiting those moments?

The guilt.

I can forgive others and I can forgive myself, but guilt never goes away. I relive my days when I’m trying to sleep, and I relive my life when I’m trying to live in the present.

I especially think about the good people in my life. People like my coaches, my Captains and friends. Daddy…

When I remember how they tried to help me, I feel terrible about the way I let them down. I often wonder where they are and if I could reach out to them to show them how I’ve changed.

You write openly about learning patience, understanding, and self awareness over time. Which part of that growth was the hardest to articulate on the page?

I really struggled with self-awareness.

I felt like it really shows in my final chapter called “Good and Bad” because I tried to verbalize how I saw myself.We never speak about our true thoughts, but that is what Good and Bad is. I had to dig deep into my heart then write down what was really happening. Words that I would never normally say out loud.

My hope was that readers would realize that we all have true intentions that we never talk about, I want to challenge readers to be aware of what they are really doing to others when they say hurtful words.

You describe the memoir as a radio station playing different “songs” from your life. What do you hope readers feel as they move from one “song” to the next?

Music has a huge impact on our emotions. Music has the power to take you to a place or a moment in time.

Have you ever heard a song come on the radio and your face lit up? Then you found yourself thinking “I remember when they played this song at a friends funeral.” or “This is the dong they played at my sisters wedding, it was the first time I ….” and so on.

I want my book to feel like they’re flipping through a station and hearing parts of my life which sparked different emotions.

There’s no final “happy ending” - instead, the book ends with ongoing reflection and forward movement. What message did you want readers to carry with them from that choice?

I want readers to understand that life doesn’t end after tribulations or triumph. No matter what the outcome, there will be more.

More importantly, when they read about Daddy and how he influenced my life (as well as others), I want readers to know that our stories don’t end when we die.

So, what will people write about you now if they could? What will they say after you die?

We are still creating that narrative now.

The memoir introduces a wide cast of people who influenced your life, for better or worse. How did you decide which stories to include and which to leave out?

When my counselor asked me to write down my memories, she suggested I focus on the memories that I replay in my mind the most, assuming those are the things that bother me most.

Once I started writing these snippets down, it was like my fingers just kept typing more.

Soon I had a variety of stories. I had military stories for fun, I had stories with my son which helped me see the kind of mother I was, I had stories of my husband which made me appreciate my second chance at love, then there were stories about his family. Pretty soon, I realised I had a stack of stories but some just sounded like I was complaining.

So, my counselor asked me which parts actually influenced my morals and taught me to be a better daughter, mother, or wife. Those were the stories I chose.

Looking back at the people who shaped you, which relationship was the hardest to write about, and which was the most healing?

Daddy.

Losing Daddy is still the most painful part of my life, but the things he taught me and the love he had for me is what gave me the strength to continue.

As we reach the end, let’s conclude on some different themes. Looking back across all the “songs” in your life, which memory still makes you smile the most, a moment of joy?

There is a song by Huey Lewis and the News called Stuck With You.

It takes me back to November 2016 when my husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) and I took my son, Sam, to Lake Tahoe. We rented a small cabin in the woods, climbed through a treetop experience with zip lines and took a spur of the moment Argosy dinner cruise on the lake.

As we drove home, Stuck With You came on the radio and I smiled. I couldn’t have been more happy to be stuck with these two!

If you could revisit one moment from your childhood just to experience it again, not to change it, which would you choose and why?

Could I tell you one that was not in the book?

Of course.

It was when I was 6 years old and we lived in Hawaii. I don’t remember where we were going or why but Daddy was driving and we were pulled over by a police officer.

Daddy got out and stood behind the car while speaking with the cop. I remember rolling down the window and leaning out before my mother noticed.

I remember shouting with an air of authority at the cop as I cried out, “You can’t arrest him! He’s a Navy Commander!”

My mother pulled me back inside so fast that I didn’t get to see their faces but I heard the laughing. Daddy never got a ticket, by the way.

If it should be a story that’s in the book, it would be that Christmas that I killed the robot with a T-bone. The laughter that night was infectious!

Your memoir includes vivid sensory details - food, places, voices. Is there a smell, sound, or taste that instantly transports you back to a specific moment?

OMG, yes!

I still make spam and eggs on rice regularly. My son loves it, my husband sometimes doesn’t know what to think of it. But not a single day goes by when I have spam and eggs where I don’t remember my lovely Japanese babysitter.

What’s one thing your younger self would be surprised to learn about who you are now?

Wow, that’s a good question. I thought about this for a while after I read it.

Remembering how vain I was, my younger self would be most surprised at how I look.

As a girl and teenager, I was always cute and slim. As a young woman, I was sporty and fit, so I always thought I would be a strong and graceful old woman.

I turn fifty at the end of August and I am nothing I imagined I would be! I have arthritis in my neck, back, knees and one ankle. I walk slowly with a tall cane, and my hair is almost completely white.

I look like a short Gandalf with fifty extra pounds. Am I ashamed of this? Not at all! I think my younger self would be shocked to see me smiling about myself because I love who I am now.

And to finish, with a memoir and a novel published, what’s next? Will you explore the world of Target: Remnant Trilogy a little more? Something else planned? Or is it time for a rest and a walk in the woods?

Ah! How did you know about my walks in the woods?! I have three paths in front of me right now.

I just finished writing three more Target: Remnant stories. It’s called “The Final Series”

I’m taking a short break from it so I can revisit it next month then start editing and formatting. I also have a phenomenal illustrator who is working on the cover. He’s only 12 and he is very talented.

I’ve begun three other books: (Stay with me, now!)

One is about Lands and Elements with personalities who battle over people. Another is about an immortal dog named Nashoba. And the third is about a group of people who are sucked into a strange world where their modern knowledge help inhabitants defeat an evil force.

But most likely, I will continue writing more memoirs.

Last May, my son came out and told me he was beginning his transition. “He” will be “She” soon. I have already begun writing about this journey. Sam suggested I title this book, “Trans-parentsy”

Thanks to C S Queen for joining us to discuss Everything Was Fine, Until She Was Born and more!

You can read more about C S Queen and her work HERE.