Robert hart

Writing Real Fiction

A reader asked me, “Why write a book about Faeries?” A good question. The answer is I had to! I didn’t invent the Fairies as an act of whimsy. At the time of writing, I desperately needed them in my life. Here’s how writing Twice Born helped me escape from the demons of hell.

For those that haven’t read the book yet: Twice Born is not a book about Faeries; it’s about real people who discover how love can triumph over tragedy and loss. It just happens to contain Faeries who help the humans transcend life’s greatest challenges. The Faeries of the Hoodown Woods are nothing like Tinkerbell. They are Real Fairies. They have a transcendent understanding of life, death, and the universe. They are serious miracle workers who have developed a science and a technology, way beyond human capability. They also have a great mission on Earth; to reduce human suffering

“Our job is to keep a close watch over humans. We are here to add a little joy to your lives, and to reduce the sickness and weeping in the world.”

– Sapphire Silverwings

At the heart of the book is the relationship between three people: Thomas Archer, his wife Naomi, and their 10-year-old granddaughter, Willow. These characters are closely modeled on real people, whom I have known intimately, who have lived real lives, who have known joy and despair, love and loss, tragedy and transcendence, and who all, at times, needed a little miracle.

But I didn’t invent the Fairies as an act of whimsy. At the time of writing, I desperately needed them in my life.

At the age of 77, I was struck down with a life-threatening colonic cancer tumour. I was rushed to hospital for an emergency operation to remove a growth that would have killed me within 24 hours. Fortunately, the operation was a success. Unfortunately, I had a bad reaction to the anesthetic. As soon as I came round, I fought violently with the theater nurses. I tore at my tubes and electrodes. Despite excruciating pain, I tried to climb out of the high-sided stretcher.

I was in a state of delirium, trapped in a paranoid delusion. I believed I was imprisoned, in the depths of hell, being tortured by demons. This continued, day and night, for 72 hours.

I believed the hospital ward was my cell, and the staff and patients were there to keep me captive while the demons tormented me. The doctors, the nurses, and the psychologist they called in, were unable to convince me that my persecution and torture were imaginary.

After I recovered, I apologised to everyone for my awful behavior during the episode. They politely reassured me, but, after the havoc I caused, I know they were relieved to see me discharged.

The unconscious does not differentiate between an experience that is real, and one that is imagined. For a long time afterwards my nightmare periodically returned and the memory of it haunted my waking hours—just as if it was real. I was shocked and depressed that my mind could create the ghastly demonic creatures that had entered my imagination and defiled me. I felt my whole being had been forever corrupted.

In time, I realised that I was alone against the demons, who refused to leave. I had no one in my psyche to help me – no priest, rabbi, God or Angel to exorcise these evil entities.

I needed an Angel in my life and a prayer to fight back against the evil. I had the idea that a Faerie would make a more easily accessible ally. So I invented the Faerie I needed and wrote her into the family drama I’d started writing before the cancer struck.

Twice Born, the book, was actually born twice. In its first birth, it was called the Girl With the White Dove. It was about the same old man, Thomas Archer and his wife Naomi, who had suffered a tragedy that had blighted their lives and threatened their relationship. They needed a miraculous intervention. Their miracle came in their shared visions of a young girl with a white dove as companion. She was mysteriously present at the scene of a number of disasters they witnessed.

But after my own post-operative disaster, I decided to bring a Faerie into the story, and into my life. So, the second incarnation of the book was born – Twice Born.

I invented a Faerie called Sapphire and I explored her character using a Character Interview Technique. Talking with the Faerie helped me bring her alive in my unconscious fight with the shades that haunted me and we eventually expelled them.

Writing my first novel, Rebecca’s Secrets, helped me reframe and come to terms with my childhood experience of maternal abandonment. Writing Twice Born helped me escape from the demons of hell.