Sophia Le: Healing Ancestral Trauma Through Writing
Did you think of yourself as a creative kid? What does creativity look like for you these days?
I nearly failed an art class in middle school over a paper maché mishap, so I definitely didn’t consider myself a creative kid. My parents are Vietnamese immigrants, so any money we had for extras beyond food, clothing, and shelter was for books. Every month I ordered from the Scholastic catalog, browsed bookstores while waiting for piano lessons, and spent summers tucked in my favorite chair at the library.
But despite loving books, it wasn’t until I was seventeen and dealing with my first heartbreak that I started writing my own stories. It was the first time I experienced the flow state, and heavily influences the stories I currently write: being an Asian American woman trying to navigate the interplay between modern life and cultural preservation.
What helps you make time and space for being creative? How do you avoid burn out?
I am a daily yoga practitioner—99% of my story ideas come after my morning vinyasa flow. Beyond that, I’m an advocate for proper nutrition (I have various food sensitivities and am mindful of my processed sugar intake), the right supplementation to fill the gaps food can’t provide, and getting enough sleep. 7 uninterrupted hours isn’t always possible as a mother of a four-year-old, but even a 30-minute power nap after lunch will do wonders for my creativity!
How did motherhood change your creative practice?
I was freelance writing for software companies when my daughter was born; meaning I had this grandiose vision of being the mom who could work without having to outsource childcare. What I quickly learned is children have a mind of their own, meaning I was exclusively nursing my daughter in between client meetings and brainstorming value propositions at 3 am. There was barely enough time for the basics of self-care, so I kept asking myself: Why was I devoting my energy to people who wouldn’t remember what I did the following fiscal year?
By this point, it had been a decade since I had written anything creative. Yet in my sleep deprivation, it was almost as if there was nowhere for the buried subconscious thoughts to go, so stories burst out in dreams in between my fractured hours of sleep. So I started training myself to ask questions once I woke up—what are these characters’ names? What experiences shaped them prior to the story starting? What trials and tribulations can they go through to best communicate the theme or lesson I'm trying to get across?
When my daughter turned 2 and weaned, I challenged myself to turn my brain dumps into a novel draft (which I wrote in 90 days—thank you, naps!). Two and a half years later, I’m still trying to plot the darn thing, and honestly I’m not sure I would have taken the challenge if I had known it would result in years of reworking the same idea. Combine that with preschool co-op duties and the necessities of life, sometimes I have to fight for a pocket of uninterrupted time.
Recently, I freed myself of a (self-imposed) deadline by focusing on my progression as a storyteller. After years of writing on deadline, I won’t lie and say it’s been easy. But motherhood has definitely given me permission to let go of using time and velocity as a metric of self-worth.
What do you hope your kids will learn about creativity from you?
My parents are Vietnam War refugees and if you’ve ever read the history of Vietnam’s colonization, you’ll quickly realize that this is a country that fought for independence for nearly almost 100 years. Creativity and the arts was a reason to be imprisoned and murdered by the political regime. As a child, I was never encouraged to pursue writing or music or art as a career path; and if you analyze it from a historical lens, it makes sense: my parents spent most of their lives struggling to survive.
So I know for myself, I write stories so I can heal some of the ancestral trauma buried deep in DNA as a result of war, immigration, and assimilation. I hope that one day, my daughter also learns to transform suffering into beauty through whatever creative medium she chooses.
What mothers inspire you? Who should I interview next?
Right around the time I started writing my book, I was fortunate to meet Jessica McClain and Lisa Rose, who share similar principles to me in terms of motherhood, mental health, and transforming creativity into a livelihood. It’s been such a game changer to hear their struggles and triumphs while having space to share my own.
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Sophia Le is a Vietnamese American writer based out of Seattle, WA. When she's not working on her fiction manuscript or coaching aspiring authors, you'll find her exploring local bookstores with her daughter or reading on her Kindle while sipping a tea latte. For essays and interviews on reaching your creative potential, make sure to subscribe to her newsletter, The Write-Life Balance.
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Hi! I’m Heidi. Writer. Editor. Mother. I’m interviewing 100 creative mothers, because I believe the more we see other mothers making beauty and meaning in small moments, the more we will be inspired to make our own kind of art, whatever that may look like during this intense season of life. Support the project by sharing with a friend.