An Interview With Jake Frankel
Use the right ideas at the right time.
You can have a million great ideas, but not every idea is good for every project. When telling a story, it can be very easy to get sidetracked (I’ve probably rambled a lot during this interview!), but you’ve got to filter out what ideas fit where. Keep your good ideas in a list and have them ready for when you carry out tasks that can be enhanced by a cool idea rather than strangled by it.
Books have the power to shape, influence, and change our lives. Why is that so? What goes into a book that can shape lives? To address this we are interviewing people who can share a story about a book that changed their life, and why. As a part of our series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rune Marie Nielsen.
Rune Marie Nielsen is a writer, painter, comic artist, and illustrator who seeks to show ‘a glimpse of divine eternity’ in her work. Her graphic novel Luris: Memories of Dreams depicts her firsthand experiences with CPTSD (Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder). Rune finds creativity in both the complex and simple aspects of life, from meditation and theology to the bowl of noodles she ate for lunch.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory” and how you grew up?
From a young age, I’ve enjoyed both art and writing as forms of self-expression, even when I didn’t know what I wanted to express. I had a difficult childhood, experiencing abuse from my parents and acting excessively shy around my peers. Looking back, I didn’t know myself then. I only knew my fear, rage, pain, and despair. I had been diagnosed with depression while in middle school, but it wasn’t until I was diagnosed with CPTSD as a young adult that the hidden pieces of my childhood started coming together.
I used to think to myself, “How am I supposed to choose between being a writer and being an artist?” The answer was obvious, of course: Go to college and study art for two years, study English for three years, earn a Master of Divinity degree, and create a graphic novel.
Let’s talk about what you are doing now, and how you achieved the success that you currently enjoy. Can you tell our readers a bit about the work you are doing?
I achieved success by actively seeking out opportunities and planning multiple career options. I’ve shifted my career back and forth over the years among jobs in academics, religion, art, and most of all, writing. Having mentors in a wide variety of fields, from professors to pastors, allowed me to adjust to new opportunities and learn new skills.
Recently, I’ve had the privilege of being a beta reader for novels yet to be published. I enjoy editing and providing feedback for an author writing in the genres of women’s fiction, thrillers, and romance. I also continue to create art, including commissions for portraits of people and pets. These include portraits for pet influencers, such as Ellen Murray’s cat Bilbo (from the book How to Be a Good Bboy, referring to the nickname B-boy), and portraits for a former Olympic athlete, Wei Lee. I also create illustrations for the Brave New Girls yearly anthology of short stories about girls in STEM. Recently, an interview about my mental illness experience was published in Many Pathways: 25 Real-Life Stories of Mental Illness & Recovery by Stephanie Greer.
While living in Hong Kong for four years, I was a radio speaker and script writer and editor for the Hong Kong Christian Council’s English language radio programs broadcast through RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong). I also served as Interim Radio Director while the director was on leave. I mostly spoke on topics related to spirituality and daily life. The program I was best known for was a five-part series called “Spirituality and Noodles.” In each brief segment, I compared noodles to spiritual virtues. When I was directing radio programs, I enjoyed working with speakers from a wide variety of Christian backgrounds, from Protestant to Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostal, and more. I also admire that RTHK also has a division that broadcasts programs with speakers of religious backgrounds outside of Christianity. I really enjoyed that sense of community among diverse speakers with amazing stories to share.
Also while living in Hong Kong, my art was displayed in two art shows with my artwork at the sole exhibit, one in 2016 and 2017. Each featured over 20 works of art I had created. In 2016, I published my graphic novel, Luris: Memories of Dreams. After moving back to the US, I started giving presentations and talks at churches, including some preaching, covering a variety of topics from mental illness to deep theology.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I would say the character traits most instrumental in my success are flexibility, being open to criticism, and imagination.
Flexibility allowed me to change majors and colleges when needed. I started my undergraduate degree at a small liberal arts college. I was very attached to being an Art Major. It was a source of enjoyment, pride, and identity. But after two years of studying art, I came to the realization that having an art degree would not be very instrumental for moving ahead in a career. This realization came to me after I volunteered to help the college raise funds from alumni.
Students were encouraged to volunteer in an event in which we called up alumni and asked them to donate to the college. I volunteered for one of the phone rounds and was given a sheet of paper with information on each alumnus to call, including their phone number, major, year they graduated, and other details. Over half of the alumni on my list were art majors, since the college wanted current students to connect with potential donors over having a shared major. I called up at least a hundred alumni, and all of the former art majors I spoke to said they regretted majoring in art. None of them made a donation of more than five dollars. Many said that they were struggling with student loans after graduating in a major that didn’t help them find a job. There was a lot of resentment towards the college. I realized I had to take their advice and switch majors.
As my mental health symptoms increased, I also realized that the small college I attended was ill-equipped to help students with my disability (CPTSD). Flexibility also allowed me to transfer to Iowa State University to get the resources from being at a larger school with disability accommodations and start fresh as an English Major.
Being open to criticism about my work allowed me to grow. The success of my writing and art depends on the audience believing in its message and feeling that they’ve gained something from it. When someone gives you constructive criticism, I think you should thank them. If they aren’t being rude and they are giving genuine feedback, it is good to consider what they say, even if ultimately you decide not to take their advice. No author is an island. Publications aren’t a one-way medium. An author writes both for themselves and an audience. I remember getting peer feedback in one of my English classes on a story I had written, and the student giving me the best feedback told me that the story fell flat at the end, like it just sank for her and ruined the plot expectations. It was a memoir I had written about a time I got lost, and ironically the story plot itself got lost! My fellow student was polite and said she was worried I would get angry about her honesty, but that was the best feedback I received because many of my peers were afraid to focus on what they thought the downsides of the piece were. Many of them chose to focus heavily on what they liked, which boosted my ego, but focusing on just the positives defeats the purpose of receiving feedback in the first place.
Another important trait for me is imagination. Without imagination, I would have been stuck doing what others around me were doing, instead of looking at broader options. Imagination enabled me to plan how to achieve my dreams to the max. I could go to grad school and live in a foreign country at the same time. I didn’t have to settle for just one of those things. Why not go to grad school in Hong Kong? Why not find out how to do that? Don’t just ‘think outside the box.’ Blow up the box. Melt the box. Boil the box. Burn the box. Roundhouse-kick the box. Make origami out of the box. Now you’re probably thinking of more things that can be done to the box. Keep going!
What’s the WHY behind the work that you do? Please share a story about this if you can.
I can’t not do it. I feel like I would explode if I were to sit idle and watch the world go by without putting my voice out there.
After being diagnosed with depression in middle school, my parents forbid me from telling anyone that I had mental illness. After I was diagnosed with PTSD as a young adult and living my own life, I was so fed up with the secret of mental illness bottled up inside me. I thought, “Screw that. This graphic novel is going to tell everyone that I have mental illness and I’m not ashamed.”
I’m tired of people with mental illness being shoved to the shadows. While in college, I started exploring different churches and attended a college fellowship a few times. The pastor there would do the typical practice of meeting with newcomers to get to know them. When we met to talk, I shared with him that I had PTSD. Before I could say another sentence, he told me to be quiet. He said that I shouldn’t have told him that and something so personal should be kept to myself. He hadn’t even given me a chance to say what the PTSD was from, what my symptoms were, how long I’d been diagnosed, or anything like that. I was surprised by his reaction and also felt very hurt. It’s pretty standard for pastors to listen about topics like mental illness and personal struggles, so I don’t know why he acted that way. After psychiatrists, therapists, and counselors, clergy are the profession most often involved in conversations about mental illness.
I started attending a different congregation of the same denomination, one that wasn’t a college ministry. There I met a pastor whose attitude towards mental illness was completely different. She was open about the fact that she had bipolar disorder and she never turned anyone away. She became a mentor to me, and her courage and resilience has guided me to this day. Her outspokenness promoting the rights of individuals in the queer (LGBTQIA+) community also resonated with me deeply, and I am grateful to her for helping me to open up to the queer aspects of myself, sides of me that I value dearly. Like me, my pastor was someone who could not sit and watch the world go by without using her voice to stand up for what she believed in, to take action and inspire action.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I met my now-husband, Jordan, a few months after I received my CPTSD diagnosis. We started out as friends, chatting about anime and video games, and I kept him at a distance for quite a while. As we grew closer and I started to trust Jordan more, we were able to watch anime and play video games together. We became best friends, and then that friendship developed into love. He has always been very patient, compassionate, and kind. I told Jordan about my CPTSD circumstances shortly after we became a couple, and he has always been very supportive. He continues to encourage me to pursue my dreams.
Shortly after meeting Jordan, I began telling him about my dreams of going to grad school overseas and pursuing job opportunities abroad. As we dated, I continued to update him on the progress of my grad school application for Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong, among other opportunities I was looking into. I once joked about how the dorm rooms at the Hong Kong school were rather small, and that married students got larger rooms than the ones made for regular roommates. From time to time, I would ask Jordan what his dreams were, but his answers were usually quite vague. I grew nervous as time approached for me to leave for grad school in Hong Kong, knowing our relationship was about to turn into a long-distance one.
A few days before we were to be separated by my journey, I asked Jordan again what his dream was. He said his dream was to marry me and he proposed. So, we got married after my first semester in Hong Kong and he joined me there, where he became an English teacher and venue coordinator. I got that upgrade to a larger dorm room. And more importantly, an upgrade to my life! Jordan and I have been happily married for 10 years.
Awesome! Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. I’m an author and I believe that books have the power to change lives. Can you please tell our readers about “The Book That Changed Your Life”? Can you share a story about how it impacted you?
As I’ve mentioned, Luris: Memories of Dreams is a graphic novel based on my experiences with CPTSD. It’s a very abstract story, sharing what I’ve remembered from CTPSD-related dreams, including nightmares. It is a retelling of the major events of my childhood through what I remember from my dreams. Often, I remember the dreams more clearly than the real-life events they represented. Amnesia is common for victims of childhood abuse, but I didn’t want my incomplete memories to stop me from telling my story. In many ways, the abstract story of Luris is the truest story I know of my upbringing.
I want readers to know that PTSD (and the specific form of CPTSD) is real, child abuse is real, and both individuals with trauma and society as a whole need to address the harsh realities we face and how to prevent more crimes against children. Sadly, child abuse is a lot more common that many people realize. It can be very hard for victims of child abuse to speak out, and even harder for them to be heard. Silent crimes are happening. Keeping them in silence allows perpetrators to continue their cruelty without repercussion.
What was the moment or series of events that made you decide that you wanted to take a specific course of action based on the inspiration from the book? Can you share a story about that?
My graphic novel is quite strange for many reasons, among them being that the narration is written in second-person, which means that the narrator uses “you” to speak to both the main character and the reader at the same time. It was like a higher power speaking through me, as well as showing me the psychological inner child that I had neglected.
I felt rushed throughout the publication process, as the publisher gave me just six months to complete Luris: Memories of Dreams while I was also a full-time grad student with an internship. I submitted the completed manuscript just an hour before it was due. And once the email was sent, I gave a sigh of relief. But, to my surprise, that relief didn’t last long. I just thought, “It’s not done.” My journey with CPTSD is still going on. Truthfully, the story will never be over. The book ends with the main character having a healing resolution about approaching her CPTSD, but I want reader to know that CPTSD is never “over.” It’s a lifelong condition I continue to deal with. And there will always be another book coming.
Can you articulate why you think books in particular have the power to create movements, revolutions, and true change?
Books have the power to shake society because they have the power to change minds, inspire action, and push a reader to new dreams. A graphic novel, such as my own book, has to work with images the same way it works with words. Some books, like my own, speak what society tries to keep quiet. People with trauma are discouraged from talking about it. Trauma makes society uncomfortable, but to protect the innocent and help those in need, difficult topics need to be brought to light. Ignoring subjects such as child abuse perpetuates the taboo around talking about them, which prevents victims from receiving help.
Books have words that cannot be erased. They are not words on a chalkboard that someone can wipe away, or posts on social media that an administrator can delete. Books hold words that cut the silence and stand in firmly in place.
A book has many aspects, of course. For example, you have the writing style, the narrative tense, the topic, the genre, the design, the cover, the size, etc. In your opinion, what are the main, essential ingredients needed to create a book that can change lives?
The heart of any impactful book is that ‘something happened and it mattered.’ It sounds very simple, but it’s actually a very deep author-reader connection and it can be hard to portray. Every great novel, memoir, or short story has at least one moment where a single paragraph or sentence moves the reader into a thoughtful pause of reflection. And that point of reflection may be different for different readers. In my opinion, for a book to change lives, it has to show conviction, to show purpose to its readers. Books that have affected me greatly have left me with the feeling that there is something left to be done, whether it is in my personal life or out in the world, and that I am the one who should do it. I cannot give you specific methods that are guaranteed to achieve a book that will change lives because there are so many different ways an author can do that. The inspiration can be portrayed subtly like a whispered suggestion, overtly direct like signs at a protest, or pieced together in artistic layers like a quilt.
In my graphic novel, there are a couple pages that are intentionally left blank. They show the absence of emotion, the suppression of memories, and the catatonic experience of dissociation that many individuals with PTSD experience. Suddenly, the white space on the page speaks as much as, or perhaps even more, than words and images do.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started My Career” and why?
1. Embrace change.
When I was an undergrad in the process of leaving a small college in order to pursue my degree at a large university, I had to get many papers signed by employees of the small college. I don’t know why I had to get so many signatures, but each of the five or six employees I had to get signatures from tried to convince me to stay at the small college, each with a variety of tactics. They all displayed a fear of change, as if going to another school would be entering a big scary unknown that would hurt my future. One of the employees tried to guilt trip me into staying by telling me how he felt personally offended that a student would want to leave the college he worked for and had graduated from. Another employee tried to shame me into staying, saying that if the college hadn’t met my standards, I was being unfair to the college and blaming my problems on the college. Yet another employee told me that I was being reckless and that other colleges treated transfer students poorly. The guilt-tripping, gaslighting, and stories encouraging feelings of doom were very similar to the approaches my parents took when they raised me to hide my mental illness and remain subservient to their wishes.
I was able to successfully transfer schools, but the disparaging words from the small college employees gave me immense anxiety. I doubted myself, but not enough to reverse my decision.
Your future is your own. Your decisions are your own. Only you can know if you need change. That’s something you feel for yourself.
2. Seek out good mentors.
The pastor I mentioned earlier who was a positive influence in my life became my mentor because she reached out to me and continued to talk to me. If she hadn’t made so much effort to get to know me, I likely would have given into my shy tendencies and not gotten to know her well. I learned so much from her about speaking out. And I learned the value of a mentor. However, most potential mentors will not seek you out. You need to seek them out. You need to reach out, introduce yourself, and ask them about themselves. It’s scary to think that if my pastor had not made an effort to get to know me, I would not only have missed out on having her as a mentor, but I would also have not learned the value of mentors, and therefore not have sought out more mentors to help me later in my career.
3. Be ready to accept small projects, not just big ones.
In my experience in graphic design, writing, and editing, you have to make business cards before you can make brochures. You have to make brochures before you can make newsletters. You have to make newsletters before you can make websites. It doesn’t matter if you think you are ready to design a website when you don’t have the experience designing something smaller. It doesn’t matter if you think you are ready to edit an entire novel when you don’t have experience editing a pamphlet. The same goes for illustration — you have to make icons before you can make logos, you have to make logos before you can make chapter illustrations, and so forth.
I’ve seen new writers, designers, and artists get passed over for large projects because they refuse to take on smaller tasks that the same clients have offered them. At first, I was tempted to have the same attitude because I thought it showed confidence. But those creators believe they are above doing smaller tasks, and it shows potential clients that they would probably be hard to work with for the large tasks, along with the fact that completing small tasks is necessary to show clients that you have what it takes to handle large tasks. Your opinion of what you can do doesn’t matter. It’s your demonstration of what you’ve done that matters.
4. Use the right ideas at the right time.
You can have a million great ideas, but not every idea is good for every project. When telling a story, it can be very easy to get sidetracked (I’ve probably rambled a lot during this interview!), but you’ve got to filter out what ideas fit where. Keep your good ideas in a list and have them ready for when you carry out tasks that can be enhanced by a cool idea rather than strangled by it.
I remember writing a short memoir in which I shared about my Danish heritage. I got an idea about using quotes from Hans Christian Andersen stories as references throughout my piece, but they floated around the page rather than enhancing the story. If the memoir had focused on the duality of an unhappy childhood versus the dream of a happy one, or emphasized the dark side of fairy tales in Hans Christian Andersen’s stories versus what Disney twisted them into, the quotes could have held deep meaning. Inserting the quotes into a story I already had about visiting Denmark did nothing to enhance the story because I was forcing a new idea into a story with its own themes.
Similarly, I once painted an abstract wolf and halfway through got the idea of using strips of newspaper to layer onto the background for depth. I thought the newspaper idea was cool, so I forced it into the painting. There was no connection between the purpose of the painting (presenting an abstract version of how a wolf delineated into shapes is more like a cartoon, not a scary beast, showing that wolves are not sinister creatures like media portrays them as) and the strips of newspaper.
5. Keep in touch with connections from previous jobs.
The job market is as unpredictable as always, and lay-offs have sadly become the norm. Being able to freelance when specific positions are unavailable has helped me not only earn income but also build up my network. Old acquaintances might not be at companies that are hiring, but they may know people looking for freelancers to do temporary tasks. When you leave one job or complete a commission, keep the door open for those clients and reach out every once in a while.
I actually have some clients I got through four points of connection: I was friends with person one, who introduced me to person two, whom I did some work for, who knew person three, who referred me to person four, who became a new client. Person one doesn’t know person four, but telling them I was taking commissions sparked a new range of potential clients and landed some work for me to do.
The world, of course, needs progress in many areas. What movement do you hope someone (or you!) starts next? Can you explain why that is so important?
I cannot think of forming a new movement because there are already some wonderful movements that match my beliefs about how to improve the world we live in. One of them is called R U OK, based on the question “Are you okay?” which is an Australian initiative encouraging conversations to improve mental health. Studies show that mental health symptoms can be reduced, especially suicide attempts, when people speak up to show they care. It sounds very simple, but even asking someone who looks down “Are you okay?” can totally change their outlook. Listening is, of course, just as important. The main idea is that society needs to make it ‘okay to not be okay,’ that people are encouraged to share their honest feelings, not suppressing them anymore, and being receptive to others, including referring others to mental health resources when needed.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I can be contacted through my art site, runepainter.com, or through my Instagram, which showcases my hobbies and art (@runepainter).
Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us and our readers. We know that it will make a tremendous difference and impact thousands of lives. We are excited to connect further and we wish you so much joy in your next success.
Rune Marie Nielsen On The Book That Changed Her Life was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.