Today, I was gut-punched by the most despicable human being resurfacing in my life.
You know who. It's that person in your own life that Sectumsempra'd you good, got your usually heroic sword-wielding self on the ground with a good upper-hook. It's the person who embarrassed you, shamed you, shriveled you up until you were nothing but a mouse. And it's the person who you will never write about.
Some of us have the courage to write about them. I don't. I'm a fantasy science fiction author. I'm not CNF. I'm not a poet. I'll probably wrap this person up in a dark cloak and vampire teeth and call them something Hungarian. No one will know, not even this person, that I ever visited them in my fiction.
My You Know Who lurks in one single photograph that I held onto, because my other loved ones were in the picture and it was important for me to remember that moment.
Until today, when they resurfaced.
When villains resurface, we have lots of feels. I started writing an angry, scathing, bare-all CNF piece. Dear You, which of course would have had a better title in revisions. But the thing is, I have a revision of my book to do. I have a rental car to return. I have a dinner date with my parents. My husband needs some down time because he worked all day and I leave in two days. Tomorrow, I need to do laundry and pack for residency. And then I get on a plane with my best friend and go to residency.
Because sometimes it's okay to pull from the well. Sometimes stories are just too raw to touch. Sometimes there are other stories, that don't have to do with the Voldemorts, that we need to focus on. We beat back against the past, but sometimes we just gotta focus and row in the right direction.
Later. I will write about you years from now. You will be a vampire. But not now.
You know who. It's that person in your own life that Sectumsempra'd you good, got your usually heroic sword-wielding self on the ground with a good upper-hook. It's the person who embarrassed you, shamed you, shriveled you up until you were nothing but a mouse. And it's the person who you will never write about.
Some of us have the courage to write about them. I don't. I'm a fantasy science fiction author. I'm not CNF. I'm not a poet. I'll probably wrap this person up in a dark cloak and vampire teeth and call them something Hungarian. No one will know, not even this person, that I ever visited them in my fiction.
My You Know Who lurks in one single photograph that I held onto, because my other loved ones were in the picture and it was important for me to remember that moment.
Until today, when they resurfaced.
When villains resurface, we have lots of feels. I started writing an angry, scathing, bare-all CNF piece. Dear You, which of course would have had a better title in revisions. But the thing is, I have a revision of my book to do. I have a rental car to return. I have a dinner date with my parents. My husband needs some down time because he worked all day and I leave in two days. Tomorrow, I need to do laundry and pack for residency. And then I get on a plane with my best friend and go to residency.
Because sometimes it's okay to pull from the well. Sometimes stories are just too raw to touch. Sometimes there are other stories, that don't have to do with the Voldemorts, that we need to focus on. We beat back against the past, but sometimes we just gotta focus and row in the right direction.
Later. I will write about you years from now. You will be a vampire. But not now.
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