On weirdness and being indie-born

I like being indie. I actually don’t even think I could be anything else. I mean, sure, when I was younger, my dreams of being a published author were framed around traditional publishing, because when I was younger, it never occurred to me that anything else was possible. Either you were published by someone else, or you weren’t, in my mind.

A lot has changed since then. And I’ve learned that I’m not the kind of writer who can churn out market-driven books. It’s just not in my DNA. Maybe some people of a certain disposition would say that makes me an amateur. I’d like to think that way of thinking is going extinct, along with that disposition, though.

Writing is my dominant form of self-expression and connection with the world outside myself. But it puts me into a vulnerable position because my ideas and the way I express them are utterly subjective, often to the point of being weird, according to some people. Which is tough because the thing that has probably caused me the most anguish in life is being misunderstood by the very people with whom I’ve sought to connect.

The connection part of it becomes difficult when those people say they “don’t get it”. Even worse when that person is a friend, or a teacher, or a parent. Especially when those same people are the ones telling me what my gifts are, but I’m using them wrong.

I’ve spent a lot of time crying and ruminating about it, and lately I’ve come to the realization that some people are always going to misunderstand me. Some of them, maybe even on purpose. I’m tired of spending my energy on trying to be understood by people who can’t or won’t.

I can’t express myself on someone else’s terms. So rather than trying to force myself to be something I’m not, I have no choice but to lean into it and accept that what I write is probably never going to be easily categorized or fit neatly into a specific genre. It’s not that I don’t care for form or style, I actually care very much about those things and I am conscious of them when I’m writing. But I have to be able to apply them on my own terms, and meet my own subjective aesthetic ideal.

Being indie means I get to do that. It’s not going to prevent some people from misunderstanding me, but it means I can go around them in search of people who will connect with what I write. It’s not a direct line to “success” (whatever that means) but it’s better than how I feel when I’m forced to compromise my creative integrity to “do it this way” or “make this be like that” for someone who’ll say “I don’t get it” or “I’m disappointed in you” anyway.

It’s never been about being intentionally rebellious or unconventional. Sometimes I wish I had it in me to “color inside the lines”. It probably would have made my life a lot easier in some ways if I could have just made myself do things the way I’m “supposed to”. (The fact that I’ve literally never been able to follow instructions and then somehow ended up writing instructions for a living is… well, there is probably a lot to unpack there, LOL).

So yeah. Being indie isn’t a consolation prize for not being traditionally published. It’s not plan B. It’s not “less than”. It’s just how I’m wired, which is an anagram for weird, and that’s my micdrop for the day.

Weird Girl Lit For Real

You guys, I was just zombiecruising on reddit (zombiecruising is the new doomscrolling) and found out about a thing called Weird Girl Literature (Weird Girl Lit/Weird Girl Fiction). I don’t know why I didn’t know it was a thing before, all I know is that it kind of feels like I’ve stumbled into a very comfy place.

As someone who has always had a penchant for the “strange and unusual” (Lydia Dietz, my heart) but at the same time always felt kind of unable wear it outwardly on my sleeve, for… reasons… none of them good, I’ve kept my weirdness mostly on the inside. Until it comes out in the things that I make, because creativity is supposed to be weird, right? And then the… Reasons, None of them Good ™ inevitably show up to make me feel stupid about it, which is pretty much why I wrote Maladaptive, and why Cara, its protagonist, exists.

A lot of what I've written has weird girl vibes, and I can’t help feeling that Cara is the most weird girl character I’ve ever written, and Maladaptive is the most weird girl thing I’ve ever made. I mean, the whole point was that I didn’t hold back. I brought Cara into the world when no one was looking, when I was hiding from the Reasons… None of them Good ™ which, contradictorily, gave her a voice and the freedom and power to tell a story I didn’t know how to tell.

As far as physical appearances go, Cara may not look like much of a weird girl. She’s pretty outwardly normcore, honestly. But inside… I mean anyone who spends as much time as she does on another plane of existence avoiding reality and consequently making everything a millionty-billion times harder for herself is going to be someone who weirds out the Anti-Weirds™ of the world (a dominant subculture belonging to the Reasons… None of them Good ™ peoples).

From her job writing sex toy manuals, to writing herself instructions to get through the next hour of the day to her choice in witchy best friends to her maladaptive daydreaming... well, I could list all of Cara’ weirdnesses, both wonderful and worrisome, but what would be the point of that? I’ve already written the book about it. Read that if you want the full picture. The point is, I’m pretty sure I wrote Weird Girl Fiction without realizing it, and that, as weird as it sounds, might be the thing that makes the most sense about me in my 50 years of life on this plane of existence.