The Seed of a Story

Sometimes the seed of a story can come from encountering an unexpected moment that captures the attention, and the moment resists becoming a passing memory. For me the idea of my first book, The Headshrinker’s Brigade, came when I had just started a counseling internship for my master’s degree at St. Edward’s University in Austin.  I had arranged a placement at a New Braunfels, Texas county mental health clinic that provided affordable services for the residents of Comal County. For such a small clinic, there were a number of employees who provided a full-spectrum services: doctors, counselors, case managers, and administrative personnel.  

On my first week I was allowed to shadow the therapists during their counseling sessions, with the client’s approval. To be an observer of a therapeutic session was an amazing opportunity to learn, so I felt I had really lucked out. One senior therapist was a woman who had been at the clinic for twenty years. Her presence was motherly and calming, with her sessions trending to the low-key. So, that morning I settled into my chair at the back of the room, ready for another soothing therapy hour, as her first client came into the office. The client was in her thirties, heavy set with a heavy gait, who silently plodded into the room before plunking into the chair. The therapist hadn’t even finished her usual opening sentence of, “So, how have you been doing?”, when the client opened her mouth and let out a wail of such a volume that I literally rocked back in my chair.  

A shot of adrenaline blew away my quiet, fly-on-the-wall status as the situation in the room tilted from bucolic to in-coming. I snapped my attention to the therapist, who, as far as I could tell, hadn’t flinched as she sat across from the client, listening. She stayed focused on the client until the client ran out of steam and her sobs reduced to hiccups. With a gentleness that had to have been born from years and years of clinical experience, she was able to get from the client what was upsetting her. Blowing her nose into a tissue, the client said she had been denied extra cookie samples at the grocery store and felt brushed-off and embarrassed. 

Dang, I had thought. Really? 

But in the next ten minutes the therapist was able to get the client to name her feelings. (Shame and judged for being overweight). And what she could have done about this? (Tell the store employee how she felt. And if that wasn’t satisfactory, tell a manager. Then buy her own package of the cookies if she liked them that much). 

By the end of the session, the client was composed and had a new action plan should something like this happen again. She even smiled and waved at me before leaving the room. The therapist turned to her computer and began writing up her progress notes, and I followed the client out, drained. 

That scene stuck in my mind, playing out over and over. And I began to wonder, what would it be like to write a story about the world of a small-town mental health clinic? And thus, the fictional character of Rowena Horn was born, who would challenge my protagonist, Julia Longley, at so many turns.  

I played with the idea, tried out different scenes, and eventually the shape of the story evolved. But through it all, Rowena Horn, with her steadfast way of living her life, her way, was always dear to my heart. And the heartbeat of The Headshrinker’s Brigade.