Guest Post-Mortem: Good Girl Syndrome Nearly Crushed My Dreams. Here’s How I Overcame It.

a guest post by Alicia Garceau

I’ve been working on a book proposal for my memoir for five years—more like eight if you count the three years that elapsed between writing a longform essay about my 6-year-old daughter’s rare autoimmune brain disease and deciding there were still enough things that I wanted to say to write a book about it.

The Inciting Incident

This February, I finished yet another draft of the proposal, but I knew, like the other versions, something was still missing from my sample chapters. That something? Me. At first, I thought maybe I was just stuck in journalist mode, reporting as an impartial observer.

This screen grab is the opening paragraph of the Chapter 1 summary. I literally lifted it from the longform essay I wrote. In this proposal, the book starts with me as Rory's mom as if I didn't have a life or identity before that.

An author friend offered to read the proposal, and when we met over Zoom to talk about it, he confirmed that I was writing my story from a distance. He used the term “writing at altitude.”

He suggested I write a draft of the proposal just for myself and let the emotions and anger come through. I said I would try, but admitted the thought of people finding out how I really felt—let down, angry, resentful—made my stomach churn. 

“Stop putting everyone else’s feelings above your own,” he replied. “Your feelings are valid.” When he saw he hadn’t dented the impenetrable wall I had built around said valid feelings, he simply said, “Fuck ’em!” 

I left our call feeling emboldened. Fuck all the teachers at my daughter’s school who treated her brain inflammation and resulting cognitive and emotional regulation issues like they were deliberate choices she was making instead of being compassionate. Fuck the administration, too, for making everything a million times harder than it had to be. Fuck the friends who disappeared when we needed them most. Fuck relatives who took my daughter’s symptoms personally. Fuck ‘em, I told myself. I set a deadline of May 1.

The Impasse

Did I start immediately cranking out new just-for-me chapter summaries and sample chapters? I did not. I didn’t touch the book proposal for another five months. 

Over those months, I wrestled with what was keeping me from writing the whole story. I thought about the email I had sent my editor with a draft of the longform essay asking her if I seemed too angry. I thought about how much pressure I felt to tell this story the “right way,” so people would read it. I thought about how I left out the most painful parts, so as not to be perceived as “too much.” I recalled when the story went viral and was nominated for a national award, I felt like a liar and imposter, but didn’t know why.

The Realization

Just when I began to feel totally defeated, my mom happened to bring me a box of mementos and something clicked. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a worthy story to tell or that I wasn’t a good enough writer.  It was that I’d spent a lifetime fitting myself into the mold of a “good girl,” afraid that if I was honest, people wouldn’t like the real me. Sifting through the box, it was like seeing the transformation in real time. Thanks, social conditioning! 

At the beginning of August, I set a new deadline of September 30, and cranked out my first chapter summary in about an hour and didn’t allow myself to hit the delete key. It was a scorcher, but instead of making my stomach churn, it felt like something I'd been bottling up for basically my whole life came uncorked.

This screen grab is the last paragraph of the revised Chapter 1 summary.

Key Takeaways

• Feelings and experiences are indeed valid. 

• Sometimes thinking > writing. Those five months I spent noodling on why I couldn’t seem to write this book proposal has resulted in a completely different–and better!–book.

• Things just take time and that’s OK.

In the end, I didn’t say fuck everyone’s feelings, because that’s not who I am either. Instead, I decided to write about why I was having so much trouble honoring my own–as a woman, as a mother, as an advocate and caregiver for my sick daughter, in my marriage and as a writer. My proposal isn’t done yet, but I no longer have any doubt I will meet my self-imposed September 30 deadline.

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Recommendations:

• Ambition Monster by Jennifer Romolini: I happened to be reading this book while I was working through my own book proposal. It’s a fearless book. It’s so, so good. When anyone asks me for a book rec, without hesitation, this is my response. 

• The Sesame Street Instagram Account: I started following the account during the Olympics. I mean, Cookie Monster with Snoop and Martha? Slimey, Oscar the Grouch’s pet worm, having a picnic on the Seine avec baguette? Elmo in a beret (and his wholesome Twitter exchange with gymnast Steven Nedoroscik)? So joyful. So needed.

• The Greatest Pop Song Ever: The TV was on in the background recently, when a familiar song grabbed my attention. I was hearing Don’t Change by INXS, but looking at a commercial for the Chevy Equinox. My brain couldn’t compute. I guess I have reached the age where my favorite songs are used to sell things and are played in grocery stores and elevators. I’m choosing to think of it as an opportunity for more people to hear possibly the greatest pop song of all time. Also, if you’re having a bad day, watch the video. It’s so pure, so 1982, it’s bound to make you feel better.

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Alicia Garceau is a Midwest-based freelance journalist who writes about family, health and inequality and publishes a monthly Substack. Her reported essay, “The Wonder Years,” about her daughter’s mystery illness and delayed diagnosis was a finalist for a national City & Regional Magazine Association award for essay, commentary and criticism. Her work has also appeared in Esquire, HuffPost and Elemental. Find her on Instagram or www.alicia-garceau.com.

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Say hi to my new Managing Editor for Post-Mortem, Farah Faye! She is the host of the Scrappy Reading Series, and is an emerging writer living in Brooklyn, NY. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Spalding University and her work has appeared in Shondaland, Business Insider, Medium, and her Substack, art monster magazine. You can find her on Instagram @whoisfarahfaye and @scrappyreadingseries. She is open to taking new clients!! She has great taste, incredible organizational and marketing skills and I trust her completely. Hire her to help with your book launch, startup, podcast, or developmental edit - reach out to her directly, farah@farahfaye.com.