#BehindTheScenes 70 - The Whisper Aching to be Heard
In the last #BehindTheScenes in June (which you can access here), I talked about my early writings and how those closest to me always told me my work was never good enough, being a copycat, after an early childhood filled with stories. I remembered two events in my life that silenced me...at least, for the time being. I kept the stories inside of me, not willing to let anyone know about it, lest they mocked me too.
This #BehindTheScenes continues the story about how I overcame the fear and allowed people a small glimpse into what my soul wanted to say.
I always wanted to write under a pen name. My sister and I had almost been named after Fleetwood Mac songs, so we decided to use them instead. My sister was Rhiannon and I was Sara. That was where my professional name originated from. I still had to work out a surname and scoured for something that fit the bill, and it still stands today.
Sara Ellie MacKenzie was ready for her debut.
It was the beginning of September 2004. My siblings and I hung out near the art room and the
gym. All the outcasts hung out there, even the outcasts of the outcasts. It was a unique and diverse quarter and one that I actually enjoyed. You can see someone bless their homemade bread in ten different religions and serve it while somebody else is trying to drop his pants to bare ass and another was hoping to pass a test and panicking out loud.
It was my sibling's now-ex that mentioned that his English teacher talked about the school magazine, The Cryptic Muse. He wanted to add some of his writings to it. Many others thought the same and started pulling out their poems and short stories. I had nothing on hand, but I knew that I wanted to do the same. I had something in my head and I so wanted to show the world.
But a problem plagued me. The major consensus amongst the outcasts was that I was a copycat. I don't know how it originated because I had done nothing except follow my older sibling (as ordered by my father or else I was in HUGE trouble). I honestly thought, as any scapegoat would, that the tormenters started it and that it was true. Either way, it did nothing to help me in conversations about the school magazine. Everyone looked at me and thought how stupid I was for doing something they were doing.
But to me, it was no joke. It was not to force myself to belong somewhere. It was to actually be.
I managed to turn in one poem and co-authored a fan fiction my sister and I wrote, Trek Wars. It was obviously about the two Star franchises. The mesh-up idea came from our uncle. I will talk about that later.
In the end, after the edition was published by my English teacher, nobody said anything to me. I did not receive any reviews. Nobody asked about who this Sara Ellie MacKenzie was. I ached to tell somebody else outside of the outcast circle, but I refused to let my mask fall. I let it go. I wanted the mystery to remain.
And my mind continued to observe and make up stories.
The high school and early college years (about 2005-2011) were eye-opening for me. It was a difficult time of discovery, but it also meant the suppression of every piece of knowledge I gained. There was a specific pathway I was supposed to follow and any deviations were forbidden.
But deviate from them, I did.
My parents had a strict pathway for me in the last years of high school and college. The number of courses I'd take, the people I'd meet and the universities I'd attend. I defied most of it, managing to love a few times and skip the few courses they plotted. I mean, three years of math was enough, and so was three years of science. I wanted to explore myself in my senior year of high school and apply to where I wanted - the arts. Writing was a passion and so was my imagination.
But this was also a dark time for me. We had moved to Terryville in 2006 and I was struggling during the transition. My writing reflected that. The stories swirling in my head talked about self-mutilation, war and death. I thought about lost love, living in a displaced persons camp (this was the beginning years of Operation Allied Freedom, remember), humans being reduced to numbers and what sexual freedom meant.
I cut myself with a piece of broken glass and sometimes a razer. A friend of mine caught on and called my parents to let them know that I needed help. But that turned into something much different. I was punished for my depression and mocked for my "lack of character".
I could not tell you the rest of the shaming I endured from my parents. That day taught me something more than broken rules about letting feelings rule my head. I knew that there was no help from those who were supposed to love me...and that was the norm.
That was the same time I found out about fan fiction - actual people writing the same kind of stories I did. All those segments running through my head had a place, and I was not the only weirdo with fantasies of outside characters and short stories that made others laugh. One website gave me an outlet of fun, and I used it religiously when I received my first laptop as a graduation gift in 2007.
Between 2006-2010, I was busy bottling my feelings and releasing them into small stories, series and poems. Fan fiction taken to an obsessive manner (which was later found out to be part of my autism). Reviewers who became friends and then family. A community who actually liked what I wrote (despite the lack of reviews). Yahoo groups were also still a thing, and I communicated with a variety of people through conversation, games and social media.
Then, I got pregnant in early 2011.
By then, I was an established fan fiction writer. I had a few series I published online and I was working on other fan fiction in my head. But that stalled when survival was foisted upon me. I did not have a happy pregnancy and postpartum. I still keep those wordless feelings and experiences inside of me. They swirled during those unhappy months, until the moment I left for good.
In the late winter of 2012, my husband and I packed it up and moved north to Maine. By then, I still had not picked up any writing. I had my laptop, ready to begin school again, but nothing more than this urge to not return to the abuse. I was not ready to talk. I was twenty-two years old and wanted nothing more than to be a mom on my own terms.
The writing bug never wore off, though. When we settled in our first home in Maine (a motel room) and our things were put into storage, I found myself with a little time of my own. Other than the chores around our extremely small residence, Calvin gave me an hour or so when he napped. That was how I began writing again.
It was nothing special. Maybe a few poems here and there. There was always my trusty fan fiction when the inspiration arose. My dreams of becoming a published author did not cross my radar yet. I was busy learning how to survive in a world without someone pressing me with their thumb. When we moved into an actual house, there was finally the space and time to just be me.
And the beginning of motherhood shaped my writing journey again...
Stay tuned for the next part of this series. Next week, #TriviaTuesday will feature three places, people, things, etc., and connect it to the books. Until then - namaste!
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