![\"Cover](\"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/dont-touch-300x453.jpg\")
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\n\t\t\t\tBUY ON BOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t\tBOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t& support independent bookstores\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/article> \n\n\t<\/center><\/div>Kody Keplinger:<\/em>\u00a0First of all, can you tell us how you got the idea for Don’t Touch<\/em>? How did this story come to be?<\/strong><\/p>\nRachel M. Wilson:<\/em> Don\u2019t Touch<\/em> began as a very personal book. I experienced OCD and anxiety from age ten into high school, and even after my symptoms were under control, I was left with a lot to process. My first pages were close to my own experience, but I needed more distance to be able to craft a story.<\/p>\n Once I decided to focus on Caddie\u2019s fear of touch, I was partly inspired by superheroes like X-Men\u2019s Rogue. Caddie doesn\u2019t have superpowers, of course, but we all have the power to affect the world around us. If we don\u2019t trust ourselves, that can be scary. As a magical thinker, Caddie worries that her thoughts or actions might have dangerous consequences, and this freezes her up. She\u2019s scared to act, to change or move forward, and compulsions like avoiding touch give her a temporary sense of control over those fears.<\/p>\n During the writing process, other bits and pieces gradually came to seem essential to my story. The scene in which Caddie and Peter visit an abandoned pool, for example, was inspired by an exploratory drive into old Irondale. That setting led me to Ophelia and to so much more of Caddie\u2019s story.<\/p>\n Kody:<\/em> I think a lot of people think it’s easy to write your own disability, but in my experience, it can be tricky. How was this experience for you? Were there any challenges you faced in writing about a character with OCD?<\/strong><\/p>\n Rachel:<\/em> Yes, I found it very tricky. First off, OCD can consist of many different obsessions and compulsions at once, and these are often hard for someone without OCD to understand. Media portrayals of OCD often stick to neat freaks obsessed with cleanliness or germs, but most of my own fears and compulsions were much more \u201ccreative.\u201d For example, for years<\/em> I avoided gum and blueberries like the plague for fear of blowing up like Violet in Willy Wonka<\/em>.<\/p>\n All the different symptoms in my first draft overwhelmed my early readers and took away from a coherent story arc. My last advisor at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Martine Leavitt, wisely encouraged me to narrow my focus, and at that point I zeroed in on touch. I considered presenting Caddie\u2019s fear as a phobia, but that didn\u2019t fit in with her magical thinking. Eventually, I found a balance by acknowledging that Caddie has<\/em> other symptoms without spending too much time with them on the page.<\/p>\n The other big challenge was that obsessions are often constant. I had the phrase \u201cdon\u2019t touch\u201d in my novel about a zillion more times than it appears in the final draft. My editors convinced me that a little goes a long way, and we really pared it back. That was for the best because readers still comment on how constant that obsession feels to them.<\/p>\n I also found it hard to handle the dueling beliefs that go along with OCD. Some call OCD \u201cthe doubting disease\u201d because OCD sufferers\u00a0know<\/em> our fears aren\u2019t justified, but we doubt this knowledge. What if <\/em>we\u2019re wrong and the compulsions really do matter? We\u2019ll do almost anything to avoid that uncomfortable worry. It\u2019s good practice in fiction, though, to invest your characters with unshakeable drives and convictions. Some of my early readers had trouble with Caddie questioning or even ridiculing her OCD beliefs. I had to be true to that doubt, but it was challenging to make sure that it wouldn\u2019t diminish the force of Caddie\u2019s fear for the reader.<\/p>\n On a less technical note, writing about Caddie\u2019s anxiety often brought up anxiety for me, but experiencing an emotion while writing doesn\u2019t guarantee that your reader will feel it. I needed to make sure that those feelings came through on the page and not just in my head. The only way to do that is by getting distance from your character and reading with fresh eyes \u2014 or by soliciting feedback from honest readers. For me, getting distance came not only from taking time away between revisions but from giving Caddie experiences that weren\u2019t as personal to me. Yes, I love theater, but I\u2019ve never played Ophelia. I understand separation and loss from other experiences, but my parents are nothing like Caddie\u2019s and they\u2019re still happily married. The ways in which Caddie is not<\/em> like me were as important as the ways in which she is for me to be able to write fearlessly.<\/p>\n Kody:<\/em> Every disability has its tropes. Were there any specific OCD stereotypes you tried to steer clear of in writing DON’T TOUCH?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve also been put off by stories that treat OCD (or any mental illness) as a character flaw or weakness of will. When the movie As Good As It Gets<\/i> came out, I was excited because I\u2019d never seen a movie or read a book about someone with OCD, but I was disappointed that Melvin\u2019s OCD seemed conflated with his misanthropy and general nastiness. When he said he wanted to \u201cbe a better man,\u201d it felt like he was saying that OCD made him a bad person and that he\u2019d suddenly chosen to \u201cfix\u201d himself. It\u2019s tricky because of course one can be nasty and have OCD; one might even become nasty in response to illness. But something about how that narrative mashed up out-of-control compulsion with willful bad behavior left me feeling icky.<\/p>\n I don’t think of Caddie as perfect by any means, but she’s trying to be a good friend and handle her anxiety as best she can. There’s strength in that, and I hope that comes through even when she’s struggling.<\/p>\n Kody: <\/em> How similar is Caddie’s experience with OCD to your own?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Rachel:<\/em> Caddie\u2019s younger history of handwashing and magical thinking is close to my own. My biggest symptom from fourth to eighth grade was handwashing \u2014 the bit about Caddie having raw and bleeding hands that her parents suspect might be caused by allergies comes from experience. At another point, a teacher thought I might have diabetes because I asked to go to the bathroom so often \u2014 for handwashing, of course. I never wore gloves, though I might have liked to. Instead, I kept my hands tucked under my arms and used my elbows to open doors and turn on faucets. I wore socks at all times and used my toes to change TV channels. I lined my school bag with paper everyday so it wouldn\u2019t be contaminated by my social studies book, which had been contaminated by a copy of Watership Down<\/em> that I checked out from the library. Random things like that were always turning menacing to me. Something about the intelligent rabbits\u2014their glossary and the violence of the first few pages had really disturbed me. So all year, the social studies book had to be lined with paper and kept in its own cubbie hole \u2014 until one day, I accidentally let it touch my vocabulary book, and then there were two books in the cubbie hole.<\/p>\n My own fears around touch had more to do with contamination, while Caddie\u2019s are tied up with magical thinking \u2014 if she touches another person\u2019s skin, her parents\u2019 separation will be permanent. I had a lot of magical thinking games, but not specifically around touch. Some of mine involved clicking my teeth or blinking while looking at a particular color, focusing on \u201cgood\u201d words or images to cancel out \u201cbad\u201d or scary ones, and repeating prayers over and over in my head. I chose to focus on touch with Caddie because it\u2019s such a clear metaphor for what her anxiety does \u2014 it keeps her from connecting with other people.<\/p>\n Kody: <\/em>What have you learned from your experience writing Don’t Touch<\/em>? Do you have any advice for writers trying to negotiate that balance of writing characters with their own disabilities?<\/strong><\/p>\n Rachel:<\/em> Well, one danger of writing about your own issues is that you do <\/em>have ownership. You may feel a sense of entitlement to write what feels true to you, but it\u2019s important to remember that you\u2019re still representing a group of people who are often underrepresented. There\u2019s a need to step back and make sure your story doesn\u2019t have implications you didn\u2019t intend . . . But once you\u2019re conscious of that, at a certain point, I think it\u2019s important to let go of the fear of getting it wrong.<\/p>\n I definitely worried about getting things wrong in fictionalizing OCD, but ultimately I gave myself permission to tell a story. I learned that \u2014 for me \u2014 it was more important to capture the feeling<\/em> of OCD and anxiety than to write the experience literally, moment-to-moment. Had I written a stream-of-consciousness account of my own OCD, it would have been distancing, chaotic, and frustrating to read. Some of that might serve my story, but a little goes a long way. I also found it important to be conscious that every element of a story doubles as metaphor. The idea of thinking about OCD as a metaphor made me uncomfortable, but I needed to consider how it worked as metaphor to know what story I was telling. There\u2019s a delicate balance to that \u2014 the balance between medicine and metaphor \u2014 and I can\u2019t promise I\u2019ve handled it perfectly, but I think it\u2019s more important to attempt the balance than to avoid sharing our stories altogether out of fear of getting it wrong.<\/p>\n Thank you, Rachel!<\/p>\n The giveaway over, and the winner has been notified. Thanks to everyone who entered!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Don’t Touch<\/em> is an insightful look into the life of a girl with OCD, and we were delighted to interview author Rachel M. Wilson about this wonderful debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[527,117],"tags":[125,116],"genre":[5],"age_category":[8],"disability":[19,18,17],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6917,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions\/6917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Rachel](\"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/rachel-m-wilson-500x334.jpg\")
<\/a>Rachel: <\/em>Yes. For one, OCD is often portrayed as quirky or cute. I don\u2019t mind a comedic point of view on OCD as long as it\u2019s balanced with the reality of how awful it can be. I addressed the quirky trope head-on by having Caddie attempt to pass off her symptoms as \u201cartistic quirks.\u201d She\u2019d like<\/em> people to think she\u2019s a whimsical oddball if the alternative is being perceived as crazy, but she\u2019s hiding the pain. In reality, this kind of anxiety can be completely debilitating, even life-threatening. It isn\u2019t cute, and I don\u2019t think anyone who reads the book will perceive it that way. Even Caddie\u2019s friends, who want to support her, find her OCD frustrating. That\u2019s true to life \u2014 it can be hard to empathize and be patient with someone who\u2019s highly anxious. Caddie\u2019s friends connect to her because of how she works to be open with them \u2014 not because her OCD is some adorable quirk.<\/p>\n
\nRachel has generously donated a signed\u2013and personalized, if desired\u2013ARC of Don’t Touch<\/em><\/a> to be given to one of our followers. To enter, simply leave a comment here on WordPress or reblog our Tumblr post<\/a>. (Yes, doing both increases your chances!) In one week, we\u2019ll select a single winner from one of these locations to win the book. This giveaway is open to US and CA addresses.<\/del><\/p>\n