Pounding a Square Peg into a Round Hole

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An interview with the author of “Prayer Wasn’t Enough.”

Today I have a guest author, Ms. Dee Ready, who has just self-published “Prayer Wasn’t Enough – A Convent Memoir.” What happens when an innocent college graduate DReedy2thinks she’s had a visit from “the Cloud of God’s Being?” Overnight, she becomes determined to fashion herself into a Benedictine nun, stifling her natural curiosity, enthusiasm, humor, and what she calls obstinacy. Her tale reveals many of those rumored and mysterious practices that supposedly go on behind quiet, cloistered convent doors. I found myself reading and thinking, “Get the hell out of there, my dear. This life path is not for you.”

I sent Dee several questions I had about her writing style, her inspiration, her revelations that are often not pleasant when revealing the deep, sometimes dark, truths about the past. Read and enjoy:


JG: Who are some writers who influenced you?

DR: Three poets have influenced my writing: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Emily Dickinson. The three gave me a “feel” for cadence and word choice.

Among the novelists whose writing most appeals to me are Louise Penny, Anne Perry, and Alan Bradley. All three use few words to set the scene and to situate the reader in it. The details they give are what I call “telling.” That is, the details tell us the most in the fewest words.

JG: What did you learn about yourself from writing this story?

 DR: In writing about a young Dee Ready, I came to appreciate her survival instinct. I never realized just how strong that instinct is in me still until, as I wrote, I thought about my life since leaving the convent.

I found myself crying for her more than once. She was so immature and yet she tried so hard to be perfect. I came to admire her persistence and her fortitude.

JG: How did you get beyond “what happened” to what caused emotional reactions?

DR: From blogging, I’d learned to make every word count, but I seldom shared my personal feelings about any story. My first reader of the memoir asked me repeatedly, “How did you feel when that happened?” Her question is what got me beyond the facts to the feelings. Without her help, I think the memoir would have been somewhat “bloodless”!


To buy Dee’s book, simply go to this Amazon link and read and enjoy.

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