How I wrote my book “TRIANGLES”

A number of years ago, I wrote an ebook entitled TRIANGLES. It chronicles the battle of wills between a husband and wife pitted in a long-standing disagreement over the issue of having children and the wife's alcoholism. The husband, Burt, is a shady character with very little conscience.

His wife, Alison, has a major inferiority complex and very low self esteem. Burt is engaged in an affair with a coworker, Jackie, whom also has emotional issues to deal with. Although Burt treats Jackie badly and uses her as a substitute for the love he lacks at home, she feels powerless to break free of his hold over her.

Previous to writing this book, I worked as a certified nursing assistant in a nursing home. I drew from my experience in the nursing home to write about some of the things that were experienced in the book in that setting, as well as some of the secondary characters in it.

I wrote about Alison's car accident purely from an imaginary standpoint, as I put myself in her shoes as I wrote, imagining her terror and shock at how her drinking led her to almost submerging her car in a river.

Introducing a twist to this section of the book, I introduced the character who would become her reluctant lover whom saves her from the accident. This man was introduced to intrigue the reader about how Alison was in fact, not much different than her cheating husband.

I thought of several men I had known in the past and combined their characteristics to come up with the personality of Alison's new fling. It seems every man Alison encountered after her separation from Burt found her quite alluring, which she found to be rather confusing and frustrating.

A good deal of Alison's reactions to her predicaments I gathered from the personalities of people I have known in real life.

I let Alison's alter-ego as a tramp under the influence of alcohol come out to remind the reader of the result of poor choices when a person is drinking heavily. This I did because of people I'd known and my life experiences.

I wanted TRIANGLES to show people how a person can totally destroy their life and the lives of those around them. Both Alison and Burt, my main characters, make poor choices and hurt people in this book, but in essence, each of them also have a conscience which deals them karma to equalize the equation.

LUCY STALMA