Incipience – A Book Chat with Author, L Gourley

L and I caught up virtually for a bit of a book chat ahead of the official launch of Incipience on 20th July 2021.

Here’s how it went down………

Firstly, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came up with the idea for Incipience?

Incipience itself has existed in some obscure format for years; it’s a book I’ve been trying to write since the age of about ten, although back then in post-Buffy and pre-Twilight years, it was about a family of vampires. My friends and I would play a very rough concept of it when we were young, which makes me smile to think about! The modern version of the story is something I’ve been working on over the past few years, incorporating a lot of personal emotion into it. 

How did you develop the character of Kali and is she based on a real person or real experiences?

I would say that Kali is somewhere between a bit of a self-insert and wishful thinking, in all honesty! I wish I was powerful and strong, but I did channel a lot of my own feelings into her and she very much has been a vehicle for exploring certain personal thoughts.

Ultimately, when writing Kali, I knew a rough idea of what I wanted my main character to be. For example, I wanted a main character who was strong but flawed, who struggled, made mistakes, and who didn’t have a totally perfect support network or relationships.  I also really wanted a female main character who is both strong and allowed to be outwardly emotional at times, because I do think historically we’re taught we can be one or the other, rather than both.

What are the main themes that are explored in Incipience?

The biggest and most obvious themes in Incipience are coming to terms with yourself, even the parts that scare you, and wrestling with a kind of inner darkness I think many of us have. This is very much a personal metaphor for me living with mental illness, and how tempting that darkness can be at times, and how shameful or scary it can feel at others. It’s a complex relationship with myself, and I really wanted to explore that as Kali battles her own darkness throughout the story.

There are some other, smaller themes woven in there as an aside to that. The one that stands out most is repetition. Being chronically mentally ill – for me personally – is incredibly repetitive. I was at a point where my moods were cycling on repeat, and I felt like I was living the same pattern and the same mistakes over and over again. Even in seeking treatment and then in recovery, it was less dramatic breakthroughs and more going to similar rooms with similar clinicians (or the same clinician) and having similar conversations. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the most defining parts of my recent experience with relapse, crisis, and recovery; the feeling of reliving the same thing over and over, doomed to repeat, so it was incredibly important for me to include it in Incipience.

How has your own personal experience/s with mental illness impacted upon the writing of this novel?

As I’ve alluded to, the story is very much a metaphor, or a series of metaphors, for my own feelings and experiences living with chronic mental illness. In fact, the majority of this book was written during one of the worst periods of mental ill health of my life. I channelled a lot of that spiral and relapse into Kali’s emotions, and represented various aspects of it via scenes refracted through the lens of fantasy. 

The interesting thing is that not all of it was deliberate. There were times I’d be discussing something with my psychologist and suddenly I’d get a lightbulb moment and start laughing, realising I’d been working through whatever we were talking about in a scene or chapter I’d just written.  In that respect, although it’s not a mental health book and is very much a fantasy narrative, it is scary putting something so personal out into the world for others to see.

What can anyone who has struggled/is struggling with mental illness find in Kali and Incipience that they may relate to?

I do want to make it clear that the themes in Incipience are only meant to provide an outlet for my own personal experiences, and shouldn’t be taken as an attempt to represent any diagnoses or speak on behalf of anybody else. 

So yeah….. who is pre-ordering their copy right now? Incipience is available on Kindle and you can also reserve a limited edition paperback with the option to select a signed copy.

Thanks so much to L for her time and I just want to give her an extra shout out for her resilience in getting Incipience out there for us. After being messed around by a publishing company (along with many other talented writers) for quite some time, L persevered and self published; which is no easy feat. I know that having your support and hearing how much you have enjoyed her book will mean the absolute world to her.

As always, thanks for being here.