Write What You Know

I've been writing my whole life. I wrote my first "book" when I was seven. All throughout elementary, middle, and high school I wrote stories - all of whom featured protagonists who were either thinly-veiled versions of myself or basically the person I wished I could be. Most of these stories involved mystery, action, romance, humor, and my favorite word of all time - ADVENTURE.

The thing with all of these stories is that no matter how outlandish the setting, plot, or characters, the stuff at the heart of the story - the theme, the emotions, the core - that was all me. It came down to what I knew and understood and had gone through. I can make up a fake language or an imaginary kingdom or a race of futuristic robot goblins or whatever, but I can't make up the grief you feel at a deep loss, or the bottomless pit of emotion that fuels teen angst, or the clumsy fumbling tenderness coupled with that squiggly feeling you get in your gut when you look at someone you're attracted to. Those were all things I had to experience before I could put them into words. You can tell the stories I wrote before I'd experienced those things because they weren't real; they were me copying other better writers I'd read, talking about things I didn't know about with a grasp of the language a bit advanced for someone my age. They were good, but not great.

When I was thirteen I started writing a story about a girl and her two friends who sneak into an abandoned house on Halloween only to find it's not abandoned at all, but home to a strange and spooky man with a lot of otherwordly secrets. When I was fourteen I started writing a story about a girl and her two friends who discover that their favorite fictional fantasy book series was in fact based on true events and that its author had started writing the books as a way to make money upon arriving here many years ago as a refugee from another world. When I was sixteen I started writing a story about a girl whose family (some blood kin, others found family) are a group of misfits and outcasts cursed to wander the earth until they can discover a doorway back to their home world which is the only place they can access the cure to their malady. When I was seventeen I realized that all three of these stories were actually parts of the same story and started the work of cobbling them together, of redefining and reshaping plot lines and reintroducing myself to characters, of expanding worlds and figuring out how to best interweave several different narratives into one.

One thing became apparent immediately: a common theme in all of this was the idea of HOME - of finding a home, making a home, longing for a home, etc. I had lived most of my life in the same place, venturing only a few hours away for college, traveling frequently but always for short spurts - the longest of these being six months in London, just long enough to satisfy my wanderlust but short enough that I could be back with friends and family for the usual summertime activities. In short, I had never known the kind of experiences so many of these characters I was writing about had gone through. And it showed.

I know it's preposterous to claim that writers need to go through the same things as their characters to write about them well. I know that with my head, and yet... something was missing. I was also at a complete standstill in my life. I was in a career that I enjoyed and yet was not making enough money to pay the rent, and it didn't seem like things were going to change there for me anytime soon. I applied for other jobs but nothing came of it. That's when I started looking into grad school, but all the places I would got for a Masters in literature were too competitive, and all the places I wanted to go for an MFA in Creative Writing were too competitive and too expensive, and it was only when I got drunk on prosecco one night and started trawling the internet for information on grad schools that I spotted something about a degree in folklore at a school up in Newfoundland.

Folklore. Hmm. I knew nothing about folklore, except for fairies and folk tales, both of which I liked. Newfoundland. I knew nothing about Newfoundland whatsoever, but all the pictures made it look cheerful with all those pretty colorful houses set against the craggy hills. It was in Canada, and a part where they spoke English so I wouldn't have to learn an entirely new language to go there. They didn't require me to take the GRE. Their tuition was actually affordable. Before I knew what was happening, I was downloading a bunch of information on the application procedures and making checklists about who I'd need to contact for letters of recommendation and what I'd need to do to get my study permit.

At the front of my mind I was thinking, "Hey, this is the way I will change my life. I can go and get a degree and by then I will have figured my life out and can come back and start an actual career." At the back of my mind I was thinking, "If I do this, I will finally know what it's like to be far away from home. I'll learn what it's like to not belong there, but then come back and find you've changed and the place has changed and you don't really belong at home either. I'll finally have what I need to finish this story." So I applied, I was accepted, and I went.

Right away I knew I liked folklore but that it wasn't a discipline I wanted to pursue with any seriousness. I felt like the titular character in The Ugly Duckling (though that's always seemed a rather self-congratulatory story to me). The point is, when it came to me and the other folklorists around me, we both had feathers and webbed feet and bills, we both glided through the water and flew through the air, and yet we weren't quite the same. It was subtle differences that made me understand I didn't belong there. But I had gotten drunk that one night on my couch, and I'd followed up on it after, and here I was in a new place meeting all these new people and having these cool experiences and even though I didn't really want to go through with this I might as well go through with it because what else do you do when you board a train except stay aboard until you make it to the final destination?

I didn't write a word of fiction in the two years I was away in Newfoundland. This is important. This is very, very significant. Because my whole life that's who I've been - the writer. And for two years I was unable to do the thing I loved most. Because I was trying to be someone I wasn't. Because I had signed up for this and thought it was what I needed to do. I tried to make it better by picking a subject for my thesis that I cared about. But I ran into complications there as well. I chose the subject of wizard rock, which involved attending events in Ireland (LeakyCon 2017) and the U.S. (MISTI-Con 2017 and some other wrock shows). I didn't realize that one provision for me receiving U.S. student aid while attending a foreign university was that I was not allowed to conduct research in the U.S. In order to continue to receive the funds I needed to continue my work I would have to either pursue a different subject, or continue writing about wizard rock but not using any information gathered in my time in the U.S. I was encourage by many people (including people in official positions at the school) to simply lie to the student loan office and conduct my research anyway. But I felt wrong doing this while signing an ethics document that claimed I was doing everything above board. So I left Newfoundland without finishing the degree, and am now back where I started, except working at a far less rewarding job, and appearing to basically everyone I know to have become a total failure.

But.

But I know some things now that I didn't two years ago. I know what it's like to not belong anywhere. I know what it's like to mess up, and badly, and in a way you can't fix. I learned (quite unfortunately) what it's like to do something unforgivable, and the weight you carry around with you always at the memory of it. I heard stories from actual refugees through my work as a research assistant for a professor. I met amazing people from all around the world. I made new friends. I figured out that even if home is a place, it isn't really. That human beings are these incredible creatures that have figured out a way to create a home wherever they go. I thought when I moved up to Newfoundland that I would be like this monk. That I'd have my little cell, and go about my days outside of classes in a sort of solitude, where I could work on my classwork and work on my book and be free of the connections that had also been distractions in my daily life before. But that's preposterous. I found people up there just like I have people down here. We forged new bonds, created memories, formed a sort of found family.

And I have what I need now to tell my story. I just need to get well (I've been sick, and it's terrible), get organized (I've been in a state of flux with too much stuff and too little space after moving and emptying my storage unit), and get serious (self-discipline has always been a problem for me, and it's the monster I'll need to tackle if I want to finish this book once and for all).

I'm only a failure if I stop here. If I get up and keep going and show everyone what I've been keeping inside all these years, then maybe it wasn't all a waste. We'll have to see.