S1E23 Unapologetic, with Caroline Nadine Helsing
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Caroline Nadine Helsing is today’s guest.
Instagram: @caroline_nadine_helsing_author
Find her on Facebook and Youtube to see supplemental material to the book.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarolineNadineHelsingAuthor
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaaUCsUd28AhZSVoOXq9p_A
Follow this link to get her book Unapologetic: Tales of the Original Party Crasher.
The following is a transcript of this episode. The full transcript is available on the show’s website.
Devin Davis: If you ever choose to write a memoir about a loved one in your life, I recommend doing it the way Caroline Nadine Helsing did it when she wrote her book, Unapologetic: Tales of the Original Party Crasher. Caroline is our guest Today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am Devin Davis. I am your host and I am the guy living in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who is here to show you that the novel idea that you have floating around in your brain, it is 100% possible for you to buckle down and write it. And today's guest is a perfect example of how that is done and why that is done. These don't have to always be big works of fiction. Sometimes they can be works of fiction inspired by actual events. So let's take a second. And let's meet our guest. She is a woman living in California who grew up in Hawaii. And let's see all of the different things that she did before she actually started writing a book. She has done all the things you could ever imagine, my friends.
[00:01:47] Caroline Helsing: My name is Caroline Nadine Helsing. I can say I'm originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, and moved to California two days before my 23rd birthday.
[00:01:57] I feel like I've had multiple lifetimes. I almost feel like I reinvent myself every two years. So what brought me to the mainland was I was doing a bit of acting in Hawaii and the natural progression is to move to Los Angeles. So that's what I did. I came over with my little Lhasa Apso Bentley, and he used to jump on the bed and sleep with me. And I had gotten a new bed, a new mattress that was higher than my old one, and he couldn't jump up anymore. And so I made this dog step for him to get up onto the bed. And that essentially is what got me out of the acting business. It turned into a company, a manufacturing company for pet products. So we made dog steps and clothing. Our first slogan was "Bitches love me." I had that company for about 10 and a half years, and that's what brought me down to Orange County. And when I sold it-- gosh, I think I sold it in 2013-- I went back to one of my first loves, which is photography. And I started volunteering through the Rotary Program and started traveling with these mobile medical clinics. And we would go to Mexico, we went to the Amazon and the rainforests, the Peru, India. And I would document these trips and also volunteer where I could like in India was amazing.
[00:03:21] We were one of the last groups. Administer polio vaccinations via the droplets before they moved to injection. So it just was a very rewarding experience for me. And in documenting through my photography, I would also write and then I started writing and submitting stories to the local papers.
[00:03:41]And that evolved into just me realizing that I really loved writing. And in the back of my mind, I always had this seed of an idea to tell my mother's stories because she was unlike any mother I had ever grown up with. She was kind of like a cross between a Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's to like Moira from Schitt's Creek. She was, she was very unapologetically herself and she taught me the value of being authentic to yourself. She was one that just always followed her bliss.
[00:04:16]Devin Davis: So you can see that Caroline has done everything in her life. She's been a business owner, she has done photography. She has done writing. But I had to ask her, why now and why this book?
[00:04:34]Caroline Helsing: But I always loved creative writing in school. That was like my, I loved English. I love. I love that aspect. I was always journaling, so I was always writing. And I think in the back of my mind, you know, I I'd always said, I, I knew, I didn't know how, I didn't know what I was going to write about, but I knew I was going to write a book and I didn't know that it was going to wind up being a book about my mother. But it was the perfect avenue for me. It was almost like she was channeling through me because I got it done in a little over a year and maybe I have COVID, you know, the pandemic to thank. I was just, you know, home and I, I literally treated it like a full-time job.
[00:05:13] Devin Davis: But it was with her mother's passing that Caroline got started with her book.
[00:05:19]Caroline Helsing: Well like I said, I'd always had this seed of an idea to tell her stories. And I think after she had passed, my mother had passed in 2019 in January. Actually it was New Year's Day, which again, if you, know about my mother, I mean, it was the perfect day because she had to go with a big bang.
[00:05:35]In 2019 it was towards the middle end of the year, I started thinking maybe I'm going to kind of like start to jot down her stories. And I actually I took a memoir class just to kind of get my feet wet and the very first chapter I wrote was one of the ones that I put in the book.
[00:05:55]It was towards the end. It was basically my journey with her and her ashes. Before she passed, I had promised her that I would take her back to all of her favorite places in New York city. Cause she was from New York city and she was very much in New York and she loved New York, even though she wound up migrating west. When she met my father, they wound up settling in Hawaii and lived on an island for 36 years. But I promised her I would just take her back. She had said in passing, oh, when I die, I want my ashes spread across Bergdorf Goodman, which is this high-end, you know, department store in Manhattan. So that kind of gives you an idea of like her, her personality or character. And so, you know, when she died, we all were like, oh wait, she did.
[00:06:38] What did she want, like, what, you know, what do you think she would have wanted? And I said, well, she did say this. And I, you know, of course, I don't know what she kidding. I don't know, but in just sitting with it , it was the perfect thing for her to kind of like come full circle and, and bring her back to the city that she just adored.
[00:06:56] Seeing the city and going literally to all the places that I'd ever remembered her talking about to me truly enabled me to see that city through her eyes. It's like a gift that you give to your loved ones whom you leave behind. So that I think is what inspired me to write her story, once and for all to really do it. And so I I started November, December of 2019 is when I really started.
[00:07:26]Devin Davis: Sometimes when we start these big projects, it is really easy to feel isolated and alone, like many of us have experienced over the past 18 months. But it is also very beneficial when we are on these big endeavors where it's only us writing and nobody else helping us. It is very, very beneficial to form a writing group.
[00:07:53] To get a group of men or women or whomever else wants to listen to you, who is in the same boat as you and who will give good, honest feedback for the things that you are creating. And for Caroline, this kept her motivated and this brought her to the end to finish her book.
[00:08:19] Caroline Helsing: A few of the students and I decided to form a writer's group. I had to drive up there and I was fine to do it because it was just so nice to be able to bounce ideas off of another writer. And I consider them all so talented. We all had our backgrounds we added to the table, but that I feel is what got me through, kind of kept me accountable having this reference group for me personally. We met weekly, and for me, just in the back of my mind, knowing there was a group of people every Saturday morning waiting to read something from me, I had to at least write something.
[00:08:57]Devin Davis: Like with so many different projects that I have spoken about, including my own, but also others that I have heard about in recent years, Caroline's story evolved from how she envisioned it when she started to what it ended up being in the end.
[00:09:19] Caroline Helsing: When I originally started, it was just all about my mother. All I wanted to do was write about my mother. I didn't want to be in the book. It's about my mother, right? And they were the ones that kept saying No, Caroline, we want to know more about you. It helps us to understand her through your eyes and you know, whatever it was, they were saying. So I would like sprinkle a little bit of me here. So weird and odd, you know, like I didn't want to, and then just getting that feedback really helped. I wanted to create scenes with dialogue. And of course I wasn't there obviously prior to my being born and my mother's life, and I write a lot about my mother's youth, and they had said, you know, you can write as if. You obviously know her essence, so write as if. I had enough anecdotes, enough things, stories from different people from herself that I was able to take that information and create a scene as if it happened. I mean, I don't know the complete details the things that happened to her in her youth, but I feel like the point and the purpose was to give you an idea of what it could have looked like in the context of what actually happened. She was too much of a fun character to write. I couldn't not have fun with her.
[00:10:32]Devin Davis: But because so much of her mother's life happened before Caroline was even around, Caroline had to set out on an adventure of sorts to gather some of these other stories that she had only heard of before; these other stories of when her mother was young.
[00:10:50] Caroline Helsing: Other than the stories that I remember firsthand from my mother or firsthand from my own experience I talked to relatives, friends. I mean I write about the fact that I actually was getting to know the man behind my father, because he was someone that I called on Mother's Day because there was no one else to call, you know, and then we started talking about her and I was so impressed. My father is 94 years old and his memory is incredible. He remembered the fact that she was wearing a pink knit dress the day they met, and what song was playing in the background when he realized he was in love with her.
[00:11:33] So it connected me and my father. It connected me and her best friend, Marilyn. And it just kind of brought me closer to not only my own family, but the friends that were dear to her. And what was really cool is that it felt like my mother still is around me. This was such a therapeutic experience for me to not only digest and relive things, but make sense of who she was. When the book was done, I was worried that I would feel like I was losing her. Like I would lose her again because what would happen when I stopped writing about her? She was the thing that I thought about every single day. When I was done, what was that going to be like? And it, I have to say, I am probably more busy now than I was when I was writing, because I'm promoting it; I'm still talking about her. And this is probably exactly how she would've wanted it because she loved when people were interested in finding out about her. So she probably has had a hand in this too.
[00:12:36]
[00:12:36]Devin Davis: As she started writing her book, there were moments that were easy and there were moments that were challenging. And these are things that I can completely relate to as I write fantasy works of complete fiction. And as I have spoken to other authors who have been through the similar process of starting and completing a book, there are moments that are so easy to write, and there are other moments that are a struggle to get through.
[00:13:06] Caroline Helsing: I loved writing about the Catskills days. I loved writing about my experience with her towards the end, where I was traveling with her with the ashes. I mean, half the time I'm sobbing as I write it. So it's not like it was easy in that extent, but it flowed through me. I would say what was harder was the first chapter, for example, where it's just like, okay, I just have to set this foundation. She was born here I had to get to some extent that out of the way, the foundation of her mother and father. What was the most fun and enjoyable parts for me to write was the dialogue. And that's where I had my creative license. I was worried about writing about my father because my father is still alive and I didn't want to write anything to have made him take pause or sad in any way. He is a very private person so that was my biggest thing. Especially when I had the story finished I was just worried about what he would think about, you know, anything I might have written, you know, he really helped me and set my fears at ease when he said," Listen, this is your memories of your mother. Yes, I'm private, but I'll just have to take that into consideration when I read it. You've worked so hard on this book." It was almost like he gave me the permission to release her story. Cause there was a part of his that I don't know, maybe I just wrote it for me, you know, I want him to be okay with it.
[00:14:38]Devin Davis: One of the things that touched me, the very, very most in reading this book was Caroline's sensitivity toward her brothers schizophrenia. I have read many books with schizophrenia in them, either as part of the story or as part of the memoir. And I actually have close friends who deal with things that are similar to that.
[00:15:07] And the way that I had previously been exposed to schizophrenia in literature was that it was something to be feared, even though my personal own experience of it was not that way. It didn't always match that. And I loved that Caroline chose to make her brother's schizophrenia completely real. At the same time, it was just a part of him.
[00:15:34] It was just him. It was simply a way of explaining some of his quirkiness and the way that he viewed the world. And she said that when they arrived at a diagnosis, things became so much easier and it was such a blessing to be able to work with him, finally, understanding how he operated.
[00:15:58] Caroline Helsing: Nothing like the movies, you know, it's not like he hears voices, but he is a little different. Other people don't have to deal with the struggles that he's had to. And I write about the earlier days before we had this diagnosis. He would do things that we just kind of made you scratch your head, you know? And they were funny. They were funny. One of the scenes I write about was when he had stayed with my father's ex-wife. So he's staying with her and our half-brother for the summer. And anyway, he wanted to do something nice for them to say thank you. So he decides, "I'm going to paint the house and not just with one color, but with three." And it's just a simple white house, but he buys a can of yellow paint, a can of blue paint, you know, and he goes to town, just painting the trims.
[00:16:49] And I mean, so yes, he was quirky and funny. But he wanted to do something nice. He wanted the house to look really nice for my father when he came there to pick him up. But I think I wrote it with humor and love, and that was my intention. That was definitely my intention throughout. I wanted to tell the truth, but with love.
[00:17:06] Devin Davis: Not only did it help Caroline better understand her brother, but it also helped her mother too. And she shared that the relationship between her brother and her mother improved quite a bit after arriving at this diagnosis.
[00:17:22] Caroline Helsing: It really did kind of open up and connect deeper with my mother and they started traveling together. So it was nice that he was able to live a happy life.
[00:17:33]Devin Davis: So Caroline wrote the book, she published the book, but she had the entire work be only the story. There were no pictures. There were no maps. There were no visual representations of anything about the life of her mother or herself. And she did that on purpose. And I really liked the reason why she did it.
[00:17:56]Caroline Helsing: Sometimes your imagination is a lot stronger. And it doesn't really matter exactly what she looked like. But sometimes like you just imagining something, it's more powerful. So I made the decision not to have pictures in the book.
[00:18:09]Devin Davis: When I first got this book, I absolutely devoured it. I was dubious at first about reading a memoir or reading a biography of sorts, but this was such a wonderful way to do it. She describes that she included dialogue and she made scenes and it was as if she took her mother's personality and reenacted some of these important things that her mother did when her mother was younger. And I loved the spirit that it brought to my impression of who her mother was and still is. And it brought me a more important impression on the love that she has for her mother and the wonderful family dynamic that they all share.
[00:18:59] Choosing to take a fictitious spin on some of the things in this book was wonderful and it brought personality and it brought light and it brought interest and just a wonderful experience too, with a story of Caroline's mother. And it is something that I will consider doing when I write my own story about my life.
[00:19:21]I'm such a storyteller anyway. And so to take those experiences and to turn them into scenes with dialogue and action and create an actual story based on real memories and based on actual events is something that I love and is something that really, really speaks to me. This book was such a wonderful reading experience.
[00:19:45] Again, it is called Unapologetic: Tales of the Original Party Crasher, and it is available on Amazon. I got my copy on the Kindle. And if you wish to connect with Caroline, she has a website that I will include in the notes of this episode called www.CarolineNadineH elsing.com. And she is on social media with her full name on all of the places.
[00:20:16] Again, I will include links to that in the show notes of this episode. And otherwise that is it for today. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to Caroline's story. A big thanks to all of my patrons. With our Patreon program, you can gain early access, an additional episode or exclusive time with me and other top tier patrons. Just go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse if you wish to support me on this podcast. The social media that I have for my writing and for this podcast is at@authordevindavis if you're going for Instagram and @authordevind for Twitter. And please take a second to leave a review on whatever you are listening to this podcast through. Thank you so much, guys, have fun writing. We will see you next time.
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