So, I
accidentally wrote a novel. Which I feel like requires more explanation than I
originally intended to give so here it is in a nutshell. If this is the first
you’re hearing about it, don’t feel bad or left out. I think the number of
people I have intentionally flat out told is right around five. There may be a
few more who stumbled across things that I have said that gave them the pieces
they needed to put it together themselves.
How do
you “accidentally” write a novel you ask? Well, I was reading for a friend who
is pursuing authordom and since I have an overactive imagination, I thought, “I
wonder what would happen if I just wrote down some of the things that float
around in my head.” So, I did, and within the matter of a couple days, I was
about ¼ of the way through my first novel. Since it’s not within my nature to
not finish something I start, I had to finish it. And I did. Whether or not
it’s actually any good remains to be determined. I have sent it to my friend
who will hopefully be able to help me determine that. Whether or not I will do anything more with
it even if she tells me it’s the best book she’s ever read also remains to be
determined. I never wanted to write a book. I never wanted to be an author. It
just kind of happened. So the likelihood that it will just hang out on my
computer for ever and ever with nothing ever being done with it is very likely.
That
being said, since I have sent it to my friend I am now calling it “off limits”
for me to do anything more with it until she’s finished reading it and given me
feedback which is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. Apparently
when you spend five months thinking about what you’re writing and the characters
in your book, you become a little bit attached to them in a way that makes
quitting cold turkey rather difficult. I tried to throw myself right into
“Project #2” (a second novel) that also started accidentally as a result of
“Project #1” and already has a fairly significant start to it that happened
during some writers’ block on “Project #1” but then quickly got left by the
wayside when the writers’ block disappeared. I’m hoping that a little bit of
semi-related but not really THAT related writing will help ease my mind out of
my first novel and give me the “transition” that I need to force my brain to
think of other things so hopefully in the near future I can dive into my
second.
So what
does all of this have to do with getting real? Well, writing is honestly like
therapy and I don’t even mean just the “good” parts of therapy where you leave
feeling all happy and wonderful and like everything is going to be okay. In
some ways it’s kind of the ugly part of therapy too. You know, the parts where
you realize what landed you in therapy in the first place and it makes you
wonder how in the world you got there.
I’m not sure if it’s like this for
everyone or just for me, but what I found throughout this process is that who I
am, who I was and who I want to be, somehow finds its way into at least one of
the characters in my book – usually more than one. And throughout the process
of basically recreating myself as a fictional character, I have discovered that
I have changed – a lot – from who I used to be. Now, a lot of people who are my
age and make that realization about themselves would probably be glad that they
aren’t who they used to be. Because a lot of people who are younger than me
aren’t really making the best decisions (it’s part of being a teenager/young
adult, right?). But not me. Anyone who had known me for the majority of my life
will tell you that I was always fairly responsible and well-behaved.
But do you want to know what else I
was? Fearless. And I’m not talking just about the “Let’s go do something
dangerous and hope we don’t die.” kind of way. Although I was probably that
too. I’m talking about when it came to relationships. There was a fairly brief
time in my life that I was completely fearless when it came to relationships. I
was comfortable with who I was. I wasn’t afraid. I would talk to anyone,
regardless of whether or not I knew them. And not only would I talk to them,
but I was genuine about who I was all the time. What someone might think of me
didn’t scare me. And honestly, some of the most authentic, unconventional
friendships I have experienced stemmed from that time in my life. I found
myself becoming friends with people who I never in a million years thought I
would be friends with. Because they were people who I never pictured myself
being on the same playing field with – because they were “better” than me. And
somehow we became friends anyway and I’m not just talking “Facebook friends” –
like actual, legitimate, I can tell them everything about everything and they
tell me everything about everything, friends.
But then something happened.
Something that completely changed who I was. My fearlessness disappeared
because it came back to bite me in the rear, or at least in the eyes of a
teenager. There were some people – people who I thought were my friends (not my
authentic, unconventional friends, but some less authentic, but still
unconventional friends) – that started making fun of me. The worst part was,
that they were more or less doing it right to my face (via a nickname that had
more meaning than I knew about it) and I didn’t even notice – which I’m sure
only made it even more fun for them. When I finally realized the meaning behind
the nickname, it changed me. It made me less confident in who I was as a
person, and suddenly that teenager that was fearlessly friendly to everyone
became a little bit closed off out of fear.
Ironically, the authentic,
unconventional friends who, in my mind, had every reason to join in on the fun
(because they were “better” than me by high school standards), didn’t. But,
still those friendships fell by the wayside and no longer exist. Now I can’t
help but wonder if It’s because I pushed them away. Out of fear. Fear that they
would hear what others were saying and run in the other direction, not wanting
to be friends with the girl that everyone was making fun of.
For about 10 years now, I have been
progressively moving backward from who that girl was. The girl that used to
thrive around people – strangers or friends – and talk to everyone is gone. The
girl who tried to be everyone’s friend is gone. The girl who was unashamed to
be herself is gone. The girl who was authentic is gone. The girl who was
fearless is gone. Somewhere along the line, she was replaced with someone who
tries to avoid people – especially people she knows – at all costs. Someone who
tries to keep conversation to a minimum. Someone who doesn’t make much of an
effort to get to know new people. Someone who is too filled with fear to be who
she was meant to be. And to be authentic. And to be fearless. And somehow that
fear just became a part of who I am. Now, 10 years later, I am looking back and
realizing that I was so happy with who I was back then because of my
fearlessness. Because I was unashamed and not afraid to be authentic.
Even if my friend is the only
person who ever reads my novel and I never do anything more with it. It was
worth the hours upon hours of work that I put in it because it gave me the
desire to become fearless again. I’ve gotten over what took my fearlessness in
the first place. I have been “over it” for a while. I don’t know if the people
who said what they said even remember saying it, but I’m still “Facebook
friends” with them and I’ve seen how much they’ve changed since that time too
and I’m confident that if they do remember or were reminded that they would
feel badly about it. It was high school. And while it seemed like a big deal at
the time, in retrospect, it wasn’t that big of a deal and I’ve already let it
affect me for longer than it should have. The hard part is going to be undoing
10 years’ worth of regression to get back to being the fearless, authentic
person that I was before. But maybe with this writing therapy thing I’ve got
going on I can get there.
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