I wrote the following essay for the May/June 2017 issue of Writer's Digest. The essay -- about writing women's fiction as a man -- is part of the magazine's "5-Minute Memoir" department. Truly hope you enjoy!


"For those of you expecting a woman tonight, you’re only partially correct!"

That's how I began book events for my debut novel, The Charm Bracelet. Many readers didn't know I was using a pen name and expected to see the female author whose name was featured on the cover, Viola Shipman, rather than the man, Wade Rouse, who wrote it.




But, as I told readers, the two are inextricably combined.

The number one question I receive from readers is how I, as a man, can write female characters and storylines so well.

"Who do you channel?" readers ask, hands flying into the air at the end of events. "Why do writing female characters and points of view interest you?" “Are you wearing a wig?” (I threw that last one in, although I do have great hair.)

I grew up in my mom’s and grandmas’ kitchens and sewing rooms. Like many Southern women, they were wonderful oral storytellers. Their sentences contained no periods, their stories a patchwork of beautiful memories, like the quilts they made.

My grandmothers dreamed of being fashion designers, but instead sewed in factories and church basements. My mother, a nurse, dreamed of being a doctor, but didn't have the means to make that happen in the 1950s. They inspired me to become a writer, to fulfill dreams they hadn't been able to fulfill. As I grew older, I realized I was in the presence of extraordinary women, whose voices few had really given the time or respect to hear.




And they stayed with me forever.

I’ve always been compelled to give voice to those not always heard in society. My first four books were memoirs, and I used my voice as a gay man – silenced for the first three decades of my life – to share the pain of coming out as well as issues such as workplace discrimination and being demonized in society. I used humor as a means to teach rather than preach.

A seminal moment in my life and writing career came as a child in the rural Ozarks, not the best place to grow up for a boy who had a fondness for ascots and headbands. I was heckled offstage during a middle school talent show while singing "Delta Dawn" – while holding a faded rose, no less –by an Ozarks crowd that made the fellas from Deliverance look like the Jonas Brothers.

I ran off that rickety plywood stage, furious my mother and grandmothers could let me humiliate myself. But they were already waiting with two gifts: A writing journal and a copy of Erma Bombeck’s book, The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank.




The title certainly seemed fitting at that moment: My life was crappy.

"You'll need both of these – laugher and writing – to make sense of your world," they said.

Inscribed inside was a quote from Bombeck: "Laughter rises out of tragedy, when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage."

The women in might life taught me to laugh and be courageous, and their love and support helped me become a writer. As a result, I was called to give voice to them – to the women in all our lives – unsung heroes whose quiet sacrifices changed the course of our journeys. That’s why I chose my maternal grandmother’s name as pen name for my fiction: So readers would say her name forever.

I’ll admit it was daunting for a man to tackle three generations of women in The Charm Bracelet and the voices of a woman battling ALS and her female caregiver in The Hope Chest, but I imbued my work with the heirlooms and lessons the women in my life shared: That a charm bracelet isn’t just jewelry and a hope chest isn’t just furniture but holders of precious memories and dreams; that unconditional love sounds simple yet is so hard; that family can be redefined; that I must laugh – and write – when life gets hard.




Mostly, they taught me to be the person I am today. It was a privilege and honor to be their grandson and son. It is a privilege and honor to give them voice.

 

An inspirational quote from my debut novel, THE CHARM BRACELET

Of the endless things I could teach and preach to writers, learning to overcome fear to channel your true voice tops the list.

Fear is devastating to all of us in life, but especially an author. Too often in our world today, we let fear consume us: It drives our daily lives typically more so than passion. We worry about money. Time. Health. Aging. Our Parents. Our Children. The future.

The same typically holds true in writing. In the beginning stages, we worry about all the things over which we have no control: Whether our writing is good enough, whether we'll make money at it, whether those we love and know – and even those we don't – will like our work.

Awful things happen from head to hands, from brain to fingers to laptop, when we let fear consume us as writers. When emerging authors begin a book, they are drive by that unique voice that runs in their heads – the one only they can hear, the one which drives all of us to tell our story. But before we fully channel that voice, it begins to be drowned out by the call of fear. Too often, we bow down to fear, and that voice becomes diluted, a faint echo of the one that originally sang to us.

I know because it's happened to me. I began my first book, America's Boy – a memoir about growing up different in the Missouri Ozarks but buoyed by the love of family – as a novel. I actually started it as a memoir but grew fearful of pretty much everything, including what my family and hometown would think. I spent a year writing it as fiction, until someone I loved accidentally read it (a nightmare for writers).

When I asked what they thought, the reply was, "If you had dropped this on the street, and I had picked it up, I would never have known you had written it. It sounds nothing like you."

I was stunned. But, in my heart, I knew they were right.

So I started anew. Fearless. I channeled my voice, the funny-sad-poignant-sentimental one that could make my ugly laugh and ugly cry in the course of one paragraph. I finished the book, I queried agents, I received three offers of representation, and that was five books ago.

"Your voice is one-of-a-kind," my literary agent said to me when I signed with her.

Voice is all we have as writers. If you ask any agent, editor, or publisher what he or she is looking for today in a writer or book, they typically will not say the next Harry Potter, Fault in Our Stars, Gone Girl, Jen Weiner or Stephen King: They will say the next great voice.

Voice is the only thing that sets a writer apart from another. I joke there is only so much that separates Sedaris from Shakespeare: We all utilize the same tool belt: Same words, same themes. We all tend to write about the same things, too: Love, faith, family, sex, work, pets, war, death, but it's how we tell those stories that makes us unique.

Anne Lamott is one of my favorite writers and teachers of writing. She explains voice this way to writers, and I do as well: If you were all a choir, and I gave you the lyrics to the same song, and stood up here and listened to you sing, from a distance, it would largely sound the same. You'd be singing the same words, hopefully together and in tune. But if I dropped a microphone over each of your heads, the song would sound totally different: The sound of your voice, the way you interpret those exact same words would be uniquely you. A writer must do just that, except silently, on paper.

But the drumbeat of fear silences too many emerging voices. I teach a number of writing workshops, where I help emerging and established authors on their craft and their manuscripts. I am proud to have helped numerous writers have their manuscripts published by major publishers. But I am more proud of the fact that I help souls overcome the fear that keeps them from not only pursuing their passion but also from channeling that unique voice that calls to them.

Write because you have to write, no matter what anyone else thinks. Tell that story in your head that yearns to be told, that begs to get out, no matter what anyone says or thinks.

Let your voice be heard, and I guarantee you'll be amazed at how many people will respond not only to your talent but also your fearlessness.

Most readers seem to have a fascination (if not semi-obsession) with where writers write. 

A peek at our carriage house in the winter

Summer!

Always flowers!

Fab Fall!