I’ve been thinking a lot about how to use this website going forward, especially the blog. Part of why I wanted to write the book is because I don’t think we talk about the difficult things enough. But still it’s been weird and hard to stand up and speak and answer questions from strangers who now know so much about my personal life. I knew, to some extent, what I was letting myself in for: that, for a while at least, my identity might once again be defined by the illness I’ve experienced. I spent a long time preparing myself for these months.
I’ve been interviewed in The Guardian and I’ve even been on Radio 4. I’ve spent the month since publication traveling all around the UK for launches, book fairs and events to talk about the book. After working on it in virtual isolation for so long, it has been odd (and quite wonderful) to at last be sharing it, and hearing what people think. I wrote on my website recently about how strange it is that Lighter Than My Shadow is now finished and ‘out there’. Still, I’m still a bit sad there wasn’t space for it, to show more of how important George was in that stage of my recovery.
I can certainly see how it’s not vitally important and doesn’t help the story in the same way as the version that appeared in the book. I can see in retrospect how they were perhaps clumsy or unnecessary, and know I made the right decision. Many of the deleted scenes I look back on and am glad they didn’t make the book. What did help was the wordless support of our family dog, George. My Dad has tried to comfort me with words but it didn’t help. This scene happens after a difficult mealtime, when I’ve just thrown my dinner across the room and stormed off (around page 159-160, if you have the book). Sometimes they were scenes I’d put in for sentimental reasons: memories that were important to me but distracted from the story I was trying to tell, and this example is one of those.
Sometimes they just didn’t flow properly with the story, perhaps went into detail that wasn’t necessary or interesting, or confused the message I was trying to get across. I didn’t want to spend time making finished artwork for a scene that might later be cut, so I tried to make all those decisions whilst still working in rough.ĭespite all my best efforts, though, there were some scenes that did get worked up into finished artwork but didn’t make it in to the book. In the process of creating Lighter Than My Shadow, most of the editing happened at the storyboard stage.
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