This post is a parable about art, openness, & emotional vulnerability.
I wrote it almost a year ago, and it’s taken this long to get up the courage to post it. But people have started posting about their awards eligible work… and the story this leads up to is eligible.
My favorite musical artist, Brian Wilson, writes music that sounds like life feels to me. The lyrics are dependent on his current lyricist, but generally straightforward & emotionally raw.
He’s spent much of his life burned out, overexposed, and finally very withdrawn.
Another musical group I love is TMBG. Their lyrics are inscrutable. Arguably, gibberish. But you can still hear their hearts and souls in their songs. Even if you don’t know exactly what they’re talking about, somehow you know what they mean.
And they just keep going.
When listeners don’t get the details behind the feelings in a song — because they’re obscured by being about a blue canary nightlight or whatever — they can relate to the emotional feel, but don’t get a say in whether the circumstances behind them are valid.
It’s possible to pour your heart and soul into art, to share your deepest feelings… and keep the reality of your life for yourself. Private.
This is a long way to say that my story, “My Magic, My Spell,” which came out early this year in Abyss & Apex Magazine is my #MeToo story.
I don’t want people who’d benefit from connecting with the emotions in my story to miss it, because I refuse to label it. But it’s hard to admit even to myself that I have a #MeToo story, let alone use the hashtag and post about it on the internet.
My story, “My Magic, My Spell,” is the fantasy short story equivalent of a TMBG-style song — genuine heart and soul, shielded by obfuscation. Where they have blue canary nightlights, I have ice magic and secret spell books at a wizardry school. So…
If you need a story about wrenching your power back from someone who took a piece of it from you — and maybe also about how slow & confusing it can be to realize that your boundaries & body are not as inviolable as you want & NEED to believe — read this: My Magic, My Spell