A Conversation with Adelaide Perr, Author, Athlete, And Advocate
Athlete, advocate, and now author
Adelaide Perr is an athlete, advocate, and writer who in October published her first book called Degloved: Every Scar has a Story. It’s about her recovery from a crash in Boulder in 2014, when she was riding her bike and a driver pulled out in front of her. Within the book, she discusses mental health—she has bipolar II and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—as well as relationships, her love of cycling, and more. Perr describes her book as less of a comeback story and more as an honest account of trauma and recovery.
Adelaide is incredibly empathetic, and you’ll pick up on that in this interview. She opens up about what readers can expect from her book, viewing her experience from an educational perspective, the process of working with a writing coach, her financial investment, and the value of reader feedback and affirmation.
How are you describing your craft these days?
I think I have a really good ability to connect with people. That’s only increased since the crash because I have layers of understanding from the PTSD and trauma. I don’t think that I attract people who are necessarily wounded people, but I think I attract people who have wounds. We all have stuff that we carry around with us. I’m able to connect with people on that level. Beyond writing the book, I’m trying to figure out how I can be a better advocate and teacher to support others in this world.
Let’s talk about your book. Where in your journey did you decide you were going to write it? What’s the inspiration behind it?
Initially, the idea came from being so intrigued by the physical recovery aspect. As somebody with a teaching degree, I love to read, and I love to learn. It was fascinating to be in the hospital and learn what it was like to be in that situation, what it was like to have a leech on my face, what it was like after being in a coma for five days and not knowing what happened. I had to slowly piece everything together. A coma patient could have explained to me how disorienting it was, but I wouldn’t have fully understood. I wanted to share my story with others so they could better understand. I worked with a writing coach who helped me dig into each chapter, and, through that, I added the other perspectives like mental health, my relationships, and the emotional journey.
Where does the story start and how do you tell it?
The story is pretty linear. It starts on the day I was hit by the car. A driver pulled out in front of me so I hit the driver-side window. Then I was in a coma for five days. Even though it’s about me, I had no awareness of what was going on, and I felt it was just as important to share what the people around me experienced. For the first few chapters, I interviewed the people involved: my then-boyfriend, now-husband who came across the scene and had to call my mom, the police officer who went to the scene, the other cyclists around me, one of the passengers, my family who didn’t know if I was alive or not. In many stories, I don’t think there’s enough focus on the secondary trauma. After that part, I talk about waking up, getting back on the bike, riding past the crash scene, going back to racing, and experiencing other reckless drivers around me.
I also talk about what it’s like to have PTSD and not fully recognize it when I already had bipolar. Exercise, especially on the bike, is a huge coping mechanism for me. To be injured and out of commission, I was pretty worried about my brain chemistry and my ability to cope through this stressful situation. I would be out in Boulder and people would recognize me because I had all these injuries to my face. But what people didn’t realize was that my mental health was one of my biggest concerns. I hadn’t shared that I had bipolar with that many people prior to the crash. But then I got hit, my husband’s blog went viral, and we were getting messages from everybody. The messages people were sending were like, you’re a fighter, you’re strong, you can get through anything. In my opinion, those are messages we all need to hear more frequently in any setting. I could’ve heard that when I was sitting on the floor crying because of bipolar. It didn’t have to be because my face was ripped open by a driver.
What was it like to get so personal on the pages and put such intimate details into the world?
Some people are like, writing a book must be therapeutic. It wasn’t a therapeutic endeavor. In fact, I relived a lot of stuff that I would’ve probably preferred to drop by the wayside. The goal was to make something somebody else wants to read. It’s nice to have it all written down now, especially if I forget pieces of it as years go by. I had six years of writing this book to work on getting more vulnerable. I started by sharing some blogs and by telling people I had bipolar in the months and years after the crash. When the book came out, everyone had access to it, but nobody had read it yet. In my mind, I was like, why didn’t you pick it up the second you got it and read it all night? Of course, that’s not how people pick up a book that’s not their book. The first week it was out, I was like, oh man, can we just take all of those books back? I trusted it, but I needed to hear some feedback. Instead, it was just dead silence. But then the feedback started to come in. A friend who has bipolar started wondering if she had a little bit of PTSD from an incident. A stranger whose husband just got home from the hospital totally related to my husband, Kennett. When I start hearing stuff like that, even if it’s only helping a few people, then it’s worth me being vulnerable.
You mentioned that you hired a writing coach. What was that process like?
I have degrees in engineering and education, so I knew that I wasn’t ready to trust my own writing, as is. I started by taking an online writing course from The Minimalists. Then I decided I wanted someone to go through my whole draft. I worked with someone local named Doug Kurtz. He would always ask, what’s the so what? Why does this matter to your reader? What’s your theme? How does that connect to last chapter’s theme? He helped me think about it as a whole book, not just a story within a book. He gave me tips and tricks along the way, like reading everything out loud. He would read a chapter and send a voice recording along with some comments. It was more in depth about the content of it, not just editing it or rewriting it for me. I feel like that’s really important when it’s a memoir because you have to have your hands on it when it’s your story.
How much of your own money did you put into the book?
I recently heard something from Seth Godin. Somebody asked him if he’s an entrepreneur. He said, “No because entrepreneurs’ goal is to double their money.” He said he likes projects. I’m a project person and hopefully some of the money comes back. If I had to guess, I think there’s probably $10,000 or $12,000 spent over the years. That includes hiring a writing coach, the time I wasn’t working a job, buying somebody a coffee so I could interview them, $50 for my Scrivener writing program. I never tallied it because it was just an adventure, and I was invested in it.
I did not get an advance because I didn’t work with a traditional publisher. I worked with a hybrid publisher based in the UK called Cherish Editions. I paid somewhere in the mix of $4,600 or $5,000 for them to publish my book, and I get 50 percent of the royalties. It’s being sold on Amazon, at the Boulder Bookstore, and at a bicycle shop called Full Cycle [in Boulder]. Each place pays me a little bit differently. I don’t know exactly what 50 percent of royalties is, which is silly and maybe I should. The publisher won’t give me an update on sales until after six months. I’m flying blind on it. It’s weird and unsettling and somewhat satisfying. It lets me focus on getting it out there because I don’t want the numbers to influence me one way or another. The money is not why I did it. I’m getting it out there because it needs to be out there.
Read more of Adelaide’s writing and stay informed of speaking events on her website, adelaideperr.com.
When you’re working on different projects, are you more of a go-with-the-flow type, or do you plan things out?
I’m a dreamer. I used to do vision boards, and I used to write down goals. I don’t quite plan like I did when I was in my young 20s. In my head it’s not much different. I have visions of who I want to connect with in the world, what I have to say, what I want my future self to be doing, what skills I want to have. And then all of a sudden, an opportunity comes up. So many times I’ve written down a goal, and I don’t achieve it that moment. It’s just later down the road that I act. To some it may seem I’m impulsive. But really, I’ve had it percolating the whole time.
I’m still collecting the mental vision board at the moment for what’s next. I have a lot of interest in law, fitness and health, community, and psychology and mental health. Those are all very broad things. And I’m still trying to figure out how writing fits in. I just constantly circle around these big things that I like. I’m also trying to be a little self compassionate. I just put out this book, and I want to focus on the moment. The book project isn’t done in some ways. Now it’s my responsibility to make sure it’s out in the world and I don’t want to just drop it and be like that’s done, published. There’s a period of time after the book when it’s still very important that I’m engulfed with it. So I don’t want to move on too quickly.
In this book-writing journey, what has been your favorite part?
Learning. Part of the reason I wrote the book was because I love sharing what I learn. That’s what I enjoy most about a project, and it makes it hard for me to repeat projects, in a sense. Now if someone says they’ve written a book, it helps me understand what that person is going through a little more. I like understanding what other people’s worlds are like as best as I can. It’s given me an insight into a whole other world.
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