Anonymous I am not

I wish I was anonymous on Vocal. Hold your breath, I already know what you are thinking. My name can be changed at any time but we all know the truth. Once, something is attached to your government name, there is no turning back. When something is attached to your name, something holds you back. You have to be more cautious about the pieces of yourself you leave in your writing. I wanted to free myself by writing about the worst night of my life but someone close to me felt that information shouldn’t be tied to my name and suggested I submit it anonymously. There isn’t an anonymous feature. Every word I say is tied to my name.

If I write a story about murder, do people really think I want to commit murder? If I write about cheating, I get asked if I’m having an affair? Have these people ever read anything? Gone Girl was written by a married woman. Did her husband think this was what she did to get him to marry her? No, certainly not. Stephen King writes bone-chilling tales and has been married to the same woman since 1971. Are there people out there that think he and his wife are like Wendy and Jack Torrance?

Writers are only understood by other writers. I don’t think non-writers can understand how the writing mind works. My characters are not extensions of myself but rather humans that come alive in this labyrinth of my creative mind. My imagination has flooded my brain for as long as I can remember. I used to daydream in class imagining stories and worlds unlike my own. That’s my favorite part of writing, putting myself in someone else’s shoes.

When I write, I create characters that are real to me, they may hold a piece of something I think or feel but they are separate from me. They don’t speak for me. I am my own voice. My mind is my own and I don’t need to explain to another soul how it works. If you don’t like the things I write, it’s easy enough to avoid them.

Writing and acting are similar. I read where an actress said her character had an abortion and people approached her in real life to tell her how awful she was for what she did. Her character was written by a writer and that doesn’t mean neither of them is pro or anti-abortion, it’s just a story and it’s just a character. It’s not real life. When an artist releases a new song, everyone wants to guess what ex they wrote the song about but maybe they watched a movie and were inspired to write a song based on something that touched or inspired them.

I don’t want my words suppressed. My writing shouldn’t be dissected looking for meanings that are not there. The best part about writing is that you can step inside someone else’s shoes and make bad choices that you wouldn’t make in real life. To do the things you wouldn’t do in real life to people that aren’t real. It’s make-believe.

I’m an empath and I say that with pride. If you are a fake person, I pick up on it right away. Certain people are torture for me to be around as I hear the false ring of their words and their desperate attempts to be seen another way. I remember being a child and being asked why I didn’t like someone. Words failed me because I couldn’t explain just how I knew. I worked Customer Service for one of the most hated companies in America for five years and I learned how to detect anger before it was revealed to me. The signs when someone’s mind will not be changed by anything I say. The people who needed a firmer hand or a more gentle hand when I explain something to them. You can learn a lot about people if you don’t rush to speak and you observe. It’s easy to detect who hates themselves, who thinks they are better than me, and who feels confident with themselves. I won’t apologize for how I feel and how I absorb another person spitting out their poison.

I am a writer. I’m not here to write pretty words or worlds about unicorns on fluffy clouds. Inspiration is all around me and I will continue to translate that to the written word. Murder will appear in my story. Affairs will stop by from time to time. Sexual assault will not be avoided. Abuse will not be hidden.

I will never know how different and more free my writing would have been if I had just been anonymous without anyone knowing. Regrets are poison and I won’t dwell on them. My hands will still race across my keyboard and I’ll take pen to paper. I don’t write to you. I write for me. I don’t write to be loved or understood. I write because it’s who I am. My imagination can not be contained and my creativity can not be stifled.

I am an unapologetic, misunderstood writer.