We’re taking an early break from June’s focus on parenting to hear from Jenny Cutler Lopez, whose book, American Scar Stories, was released just yesterday. I asked Jenny to share with us how she got started writing about scars, and where the journey has taken her so far.

American Scar Stories

March 2013. I stand in my kitchen and my husband Jacques tells me about the scar on his eyebrow. As a high school student in Bangkok, he threw a punch at the wrong guy. He didn’t know it at the time but the wrong guy was the son of the local mafia kingpin. Jacques got lucky and regained consciousness in an alley, beaten up, but escaping the typical mark of this guy: an external gunshot through the cheek.

We’re looking at each other across the counter and I say to him, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to know the stories behind stranger’s scars?” And he says, “Yeah, I’ve always thought that would be a cool idea for a book.”

Fourteen months later. May 2014. I try to ignore the person knocking on the door as I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror at Pacers, an athletic apparel store in Fairfax, Virginia. In a few minutes, a hundred people expect me to walk onto the make-shift stage and say something. My stomach churns as I rehearse words under my breath. I unlock the door and walk to the stage where BethAnn Telford presents me with flowers. She stands aside so I can talk about my book: Who I Am: American Scar Stories.

A book about scars. Noticeable physical scars. An average American has three scars on her body. Through life’s twists and turns, another 62 million physical scars join that number every year in the U.S. Cancer, assault, accidents, transplants, animal attacks – scars represent life altering moments, the pivotal point in which everything changed. I’ve learned over the past fourteen months, scars make people smarter. I got smarter telling their stories.

For those writers out there, I don’t need to tell you the labor, the learning curve, the lows and highs involved in producing publishable pieces or a book. For those indie-authors and authorpreneurs out there, I don’t need to mention the time it takes to: establish a platform, research your subject, interview, write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, book design, cover design, find the right editor, establish online and face-to-face connections, market, sell, and distribute.

I could write an essay solely on how you weed out potential interviewees; for me, I decided against the man with a gunshot wound to the neck (research uncovered he was a convicted pedophile and rapist). I decided not to include the man who didn’t speak aloud, his written thoughts scattered (research uncovered he lived in a home for the mentally ill). I decided to pay the bill and head home to pay the sitter when I met with the man who couldn’t show me his scar because it “had faded” and he couldn’t talk about it because of “an ongoing CIA investigation” (stone-cold crazy).

But I eventually found 12 people and wrote their stories. Elements of despair, exhilaration, self-doubt, hope, tenacity, listening to crickets, hearing applause appeared not only in the scar stories but became elements of my own life. I saw inside people’s lives and I ask: how can you not learn to care for people who share their vulnerabilities with you? How can people fighting for their life or their voice or their place in the world not change you?

So the book took on a life of its own. No longer was I telling scar stories but stories to celebrate the strength of the human spirit and how often you draw from deep wells of tenacity and optimism to transform your life.

Jenny is a Canadian living in Virginia with her husband, two kids, and three black cats. She loves reading and writing creative nonfiction and lifting weights. She hates cilantro and fracking. Her latest book Who I Am: American Scar Stories launched on Amazon 2 June 2014. To find out more about Jenny or her writing, please visit http://jennycutlerlopez.com/

Preview the book cover: