Welp, just another regular old Saturday here in 2020, no new potential threats to democracy to report...
ugh.
I want to take a moment to wish everyone in my world a good day filled with love and joy. I hope you’ll find some time today to connect with your art and your communities in a way that fortifies you for what will certainly be challenging days to come.
Today I want to talk a bit about the origins of my creative work, and how it’s evolved from a solitary practice to one that is more community-focused. Of course, much of the work itself is still just me and a computer, but these days I find myself much more interested in building community than my individual “platform.”
Like so many, my love of reading and writing developed when I was an anxious kid who was quite worried about the state of the world and who didn’t have anyone to talk to about her fears. Perhaps because of that, I was drawn to supernatural stories about underdogs fighting against cruelty, unchecked power, and systems of control.
One of my first stories, in fact, was about a girl battling the monster threatening her hometown and the boy she loved.
The boy who inspired the story is a man now—one who, like many in my own hometown, has posted troubling things on Facebook lately—so I suppose you could say I lost the battle. But maybe that’s because I never finished the story. Let me do that now.
Here’s how our romance really ended.
Not with me pulling the boy from the clutches of a great winged beast.
No, he just stopped returning my calls and had his best friend break the news to me that he’d started dating this girl he met at McDonald’s.
Come to think of it, that dude SUCKED.
Let the monster have him.
If only it were that easy.
If only the monsters were imaginary.
If only my stories were enough to change their minds.
If only the stakes were just a broken heart.
What I remember about this monster story was how alone my protagonist felt, how isolated. The people she loved were transforming into these alien creatures one by one. Gone was their kindness. Gone was their ability to love or to be moved by love.
The monsters in my story were reptilian, as so many storybook monsters are—as if humans don’t possess many of those same attributes we find so loathsome in creatures with scales and wings.
If you want to know the truth, this story was a pure rip-off of one of my favorite teen horror novels, Monster by Christopher Pike. Pike was my favorite author by far—to be entirely honest, it was because horror tended to have more sex than other genres. Even if the sex was just prelude to some cosmic terror, I was 16 and the internet did not exist yet, so cut me some slack.
I would read Pike’s books from start to finish in one sitting, then turn back to page one and start over again. Of course, as other feminist writers have observed, Pike has written books that are Problematic with a Capital P.
Notably Whisper of Death, a story about a young woman trapped in an endless hell loop simply because she had an abortion.
Come to think of it, that dude also SUCKED.
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of stories written by men who have opinions about what other people do with their bodies. I’m tired of living in a country run by men who hate women—in particular, poor women, immigrant women, women forced to flee horrific conditions and who’ve ended up in a place that is, despite all its promises, every bit as hellish.
If there is any light to be found here, it’s that unlike the protagonists in my first stories and unlike myself as a teenager, I don’t feel alone anymore. I know there are millions of Americans who want a world where people have bodily autonomy, where people are not murdered by the state because of the color of their skin, where healthcare is a human right, where we understand that sustainable business practices are not only the “right” thing to do, they are a means of job creation and essential for the future of humanity.
I know there are millions of us who believe that the way forward is not by isolating ourselves in bunkers or on private islands with our doors locked and guns cocked.
So many of us come to creative work because we feel overwhelmed by powerful forces beyond our control. In the little worlds we create, our heroes can make everything right with a magic necklace or a whispered word.
But in this world, in the one we’re actually living in, there are no individual saviors or heroes. There are no chosen ones.
What this world demands of creative people is community, partnership, and love.
I hope you’ll find some time in the coming weeks to make calls for candidates who see our world as an interdependent community. I hope you’ll set aside time each week to team up with people in your communities who believe in progress.
Mostly, I hope you don’t give up the belief that every young artist has… that a better world is possible.
Xoxoxo
Sarah
PS Here’s a song I like.
Oh! Also, I added a paid membership option because I’m realizing that when you give a lot of your expertise away for free, as I like to do, it leaves you *not entirely able to pay your bills*! Go figure. I still want to make everything I write on here free, but if you’re in a position to tip me (and only if!), look I WILL NOT STOP YOU FROM GIVING ME MONEY AS MUCH AS IT PAINS MY CATHOLIC HEART TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY WORTH.
Community is vital to creative work and I'm thrilled to see what this looks like for myself and others. Love love love