In order to make the story come alive, I had to open myself completely to what I’d experienced viscerally and put that on the page. Many days I sank from my laptop to the rough concrete floor in my studio after finishing a particularly hard scene. The ground held me until I could sit up again.
Lynn Alsup – 18 September 2023
The Back Flap
Lynn watched her beloved Clare, newly adopted from Haiti, crawl the house in a frantic search for her lost mother.
Preschool Clare enchanted with belly laughs and shining smiles. Also, thrashed and wailed in her room as Lynn crouched on her own bed—pillow clutched over her head—her past trauma triggered. A pre-teen trip to Haiti brought sunshine, ruby red hibiscus blooms, and the music of Haitian Creole. Back at home, Clare shattered mirrors into shards on the subway tiles of their bathroom. And just before her thirteenth birthday, as she and Lynn walked hand in hand through their neighborhood, Clare calmly
detailed her plan to die.
Over the next years, Lynn and her family walked through psychiatric hospitals, along the Appalachian Trail, and in and out of residential placements, marriage, faith, and sanity barely surviving the journey. But then Lynn learned about fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD)—a source of neurodivergence in one in twenty American children—and discovered the FASCETS Neurobehavioral Model, a strengths-based approach to celebrating and accommodating neurodiversity. It was a discovery that transformed them all.
At times joyous, at times harrowing, but always full of love, Tinderbox is a mother’s story of brokenness, unrelenting resilience, and hope.
About the book
What is the book about?
We adopted three daughters to create our family with the hopes and joy that are the best of beginnings. But alongside the beauty, our home twisted into violence and chaos, demanding answers. How to love when life turns brutal? How to release expectations and values that cause harm? How to find freedom and resilience in the face of great suffering?
Tinderbox: One Family’s Story of Adoption, Neurodiversity, and Fierce Love tells the story of my search for answers through the complexity of adoption, family, spirituality, and neurodiversity. It lays bare the tragic effects of ignorance. My discovery of our daughters’ neurodivergence and an innovative response—based on the truth that all brains work differently and behaviors reflect that—unraveled the tangles. Ultimately, Tinderbox celebrates the transformation that insight offers.
When did you start writing the book?
In March 2019, I wandered onto an empty, blue fabric chair in a circle with Sean Murphy and Tania Casselle in a conference center in Seattle, Washington. They had come to lead a writer’s workshop at a Spiritual Directors International conference. At the end of an inspiring day, they mentioned their program called Write to the Finish, supporting writers with book length projects. It landed like a spark in my chest where this story was already simmering. I tucked the experience in my back pocket because I didn’t have time to write a book! Within a week, my schedule cleared to the point that I saw a door opening. I enrolled in the program, transformed a storeroom at home into a writing studio, and wrote the first words in May 2019.
How long did it take you to write it?
I wrote for about a year and a half—including reviews, revisions and consulting with Sean Murphy along the way—until I had what I thought was a final draft. Then I spent six months revising some more before I explored paths to publishing. The ARC came out almost exactly four years after I’d written those first words with Write to the Finish.
Where did you get the idea from?
Our family spent 15 years tangled up in extreme behaviors and fear. My natural response, as a social worker, was to research and look for solutions. I wanted to “fix” our oldest daughter: make her not lie, be a good friend, manage her emotions without destroying things, “just think”—my favorite chant. We thought loving her enough coupled with discipline would make everything ok, but it didn’t. Once I discovered Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and the FASCETS Neurobehavioral model, our life began to change. Friends gave their friends whose lives were unraveling my phone number. I created presentations for teachers and counselors and wormed my way into offices of all kinds to offer trainings on FASD. A school counselor at one training told me I’d described a kid on her caseload who she’d not been able to help. Now she had a way forward. A mom said our story gave them hope. I’m all about hope. I could only talk with so many people in person and wanted to offer it more broadly. So I wrote down my story and embedded all I’d learned in the narrative that became Tinderbox.
Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?
In order to make the story come alive, I had to open myself completely to what I’d experienced viscerally and put that on the page. Many days I sank from my laptop to the rough concrete floor in my studio after finishing a particularly hard scene. The ground held me until I could sit up again. The exploration of my own motives, as the protagonist of my story, also demanded brutal honesty. Many nights ended in tears after talking things through with my husband in our bed.
Memoir truly is the study of memory, so the discrepancies between my experience and my other family members’ experiences confronted me. Why did I remember things in particular ways? How I had made meaning of those years? How had my husband and daughters? Untangling those things and looking at how my own wounds, perceptions, and reactions hurt my family took a lot of courage, gentleness, and self-forgiveness.
My story intertwines intimately with my daughter and husband’s. That’s a sticky business when the call is to raw honesty on the page. It’s one thing to offer up my own story but another to offer parts of theirs. I asked my daughter’s therapist to advocate for her and help us sort through what to include in order to address the power differential between us a bit, though my daughter always supported the project. Her therapist also helped her consider the consequences of publishing our story. She decided she was proud of our story as I told it and wanted to help others with FASD. She’s an extraordinary young woman.
What came easily?
The outline of the story easily fell into place. Our brains often store experiences with strong emotional content quite vividly, so particular scenes quickly became trail markers. I followed those memories along the timeline, and each chapter fell into place.
Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?
Almost everyone the reader meets is an actual person in our life. Just a couple of characters are composites of people in the real world, and I changed a few names for privacy.
We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?
I kept a stack of memoirs on the blue metal cart by my bed throughout the project to keep my mind at work. I held onto The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr and Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle especially. The unflinching honesty—though I’m sure it made them flinch along the way—and craftmanship of their work inspired me to lay it bare on the page and stay true to my particular voice in the telling. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings also influenced this project. I admire how she told her story without subtle commentary, letting the reader come to their own conclusions. I tried to embody that in my writing. Natalie Goldberg and Anne Lamott’s early work on writing makes me laugh and also want to be a better writer, using clear, precise, provocative language. I would love to think the gentle beauty of Pico Iyer’s Autum Light: Season of Fire and Farewells and Mirabai Starr’s vulnerability and lyricism in Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation somehow seeped into my work.
Do you have a target reader?
I wrote the book for families like ours and the people who support them. Tinderbox says: “You are not alone”; “It really is this hard”; “There is hope.” Being a neurodivergent person in our one-size-fits-everyone world and raising kids who are wired differently both bring isolation and judgment. Tinderbox is also for doctors, counselors, teachers and family members to open a window into what this life actually looks like and what makes it better.
In my dream for readership, these families are the center point where the stone drops. It begins with adoptive/foster parents whose kids have confusing, challenging behaviors. Circles expand from there to families with all kinds of neurodivergence, then to medical providers, counselors, and teachers who diagnose and treat our kids, outward to people working in all the places neurodivergence can lead when not understood and accommodated (the legal system, substance abuse treatment, social services), and finally to anyone seeking a path of love, acceptance and compassion through suffering.
About Writing
Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?
I tend to start out freewriting longhand—moving pen across paper for 30 minutes or more without stopping—to see what comes out. I keep my kids half-empty notebooks for this! Usually, at least the first several minutes of writing get trashed because they come from my logical mind rather than my core. The good stuff comes from my core. I’ll use a writing exercise to flesh out a scene if I’m stuck in one mode instead of dancing between description, action, dialogue, etc., or forgotten I have a body with five senses that need mentioning. At some point, I switch over to my laptop and begin a more logical approach to the work, knitting sections of my notebook pages into a first draft. When my fingers, shoulders, or eyes can’t type onto a screen anymore, I print out the pages and write on them or cut them up to move sections around and try out different structures. I mix it up for the sake of my body, mind, and spirit.
Roaming helps, too. I usually begin a writing day at a table on the back porch with my dogs. Fresh air and birdsong wake me up. Then I might move to the quiet of my studio and end up on the floor, working on an upturned wicker box where I can stretch my legs and let my shoulders loosen up. It’s amazing how physical writing is. I alternate between writing for 3-4 hours per day like that and loading up my orange Subaru to head off somewhere for a few nights. In the solitude, I braid binge writing together with simple meals and long walks. These stetches yield exponentially more words, creative breakthroughs, and revisions than I cobble together at home. I went away once a month—thanks to an incredibly supportive husband—the winter/spring I finished up Tinderbox.
Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?
My outline is just a few notes about key scenes, characters, locations and timelines for each chapter and the significant turning points in the narrative arc. It often helps me to think in terms of writing a play in three acts, though the final product might not include parts as such.
Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?
I shift between writing new chapters, usually on paper as I mentioned, and editing previous chapters on my laptop when my brain needs a break from one or the other, only editing sections that already have a complete arc. My right brain/creative mind needs a chance to say all it wants before I enlist the editor in my left brain. They make a great team.
Did you hire a professional editor?
I had the gift of Write to the Finish with writers, editors, and teachers Tania Casselle and Sean Murphy throughout the project, including two full manuscript critiques. I hired a copy editor through She Writes Press to go over the final draft. It’s amazing what our brains correct for us as we read, so we miss mistakes along the way.
Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?
I have a classical station that I’ve tweaked on Apple music that is just right for giving me energy and focus. No lyrics or emotional extremes or my mind and nervous system get distracted. I’m definitely not listening to Beethoven’s Eroica while I write.
About Publishing
Did you submit your work to Agents?
I submitted to one agent who works with a friend of mine, but we weren’t a good fit. I decided I’d rather spend my energy finding a publisher rather than an agent, though I’ve often wished I had one to help navigate this world.
What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?
This project is definitely niche, so I didn’t pitch to any big traditional publishers. I queried or sent proposals to maybe 25 traditional indie publishers as well as the hybrid She Writes Press (SWP). After debating the benefits of traditional versus hybrid, I chose SWP because of the control it gave me, the remarkable alignment of our values, and the traditional distribution offered. Brooke Warner holds an exceptional commitment to amplifying diverse women’s voices through her press. I’m grateful for SWP’s expertise, connections, and support as well as honoring my priorities and process right up to the point of sending the final file to the printer.
Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?
She Writes created the cover with my input—definitely an area where their expertise served me well. I had a very different cover in mind but came to realize their design would intrigue people, draw them in. That has proved abundantly true. I love it now and am so glad I listened to them.
Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?
BookSparks is coordinating my publicity campaign while I engage my contacts in the worlds of adoption, fostercare and neurodiversity. The team effort lets me focus on my strengths and lean into theirs. I’d rather be writing than marketing, for sure, but it’s true that writing is only the first half of a book project. Publishing and marketing make up the other half.
Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?
You don’t have to do it alone! Find people that resonate with you and walk together. Be patient. Revise, revise, revise. It takes a long time to write, publish, and market a good book.
About You
Where did you grow up?
I’m a bit of a nomad in life as well as writing, moving every few years for most of my life. My parents both grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, and, like most Texans, they hold that identity in their bones. They brought Texas with us wherever we went around the U.S.. I moved for a short stint to western Canada as an adult. When I lived in Vancouver, B.C., I thought, “I should have been born here. Someone made a mistake somewhere along the way.” I like to imagine I’m secretly Canadian.
Where do you live now?
I live in west Texas in a small-ish town called Midland, where my husband grew up. I think of it as the frontier. We’re on the edge of the Chihuahuan desert and the wilds of Far West Texas. The best part of living here is being near family and hopping over into New Mexico as often as possible. What a sacred land the New Mexican high desert is.
What would you like readers to know about you?
I believe stories are what make the world go round. Telling this one of mine took courage and sweat. Meditation and beauty helped. I’m deeply grateful to my husband and kids for embracing this journey with me. May it make the path easier for some folks and open a door to understanding, compassion, and hope.
What are you working on now?
I am focused on getting Tinderbox into as many hands as possible.
End of Interview:
For more from Lynn Alsup visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
