I do enjoy writing to a degree, obviously, but I mostly feel intimated by it. Putting words down, for someone else to read?? How presumptuous. All my journals are achingly navel-gazing while simultaneously giving the impression that I’m looking over my shoulder with eyebrow cocked for approval. Re-reading them doesn’t feel all that different from how I remember it was to write them - peering over my pince-nez at my great-great-grandchildren and daring them to think I’m not cool, because I KNOW I’m not, wondering on the page how they see me while I figure out how I see myself. (No I don’t know what pince-nez are, yes I’m one of those nerds who mispronounces fancy words because I’ve only ever read them and never heard them out loud.) Journaling never did all that much for me, sadly for you all I like to hit “send” on a thing - I think ultimately what I like most about writing is the feeling of release, not during it but maybe after, when something alive and writhing gets to be outside instead of in - but it is agony to reread it, truly. The redundancies and grammatical atrocities and pleading vulnerability, yuck! I would take myself off my email distribution list but I’m trying to get to 100 subscribers so here I still am, to one person you are the world etc., to a subscription list you are still one person but it’s a relatively high fraction of the whole in this case.
I really thrived in the days of interactive mid-social media, when we mostly weren’t posting on other people’s walls anymore but publishing on our own wasn’t yet completely drowned out by ad algorithms. Sometimes I wonder if I missed the opportunity to do something more like this sooner - my early-adopter-of-things-then-boyfriend encouraged me to start a Substack closer to its inception because he is very supportive and wonderful, and also his sweet great aunt once said she was going to send my Facebook essay on sexism to Hillary Clinton so CLEARLY I was the real deal. Can you imagine me Substack-ing you with even LESS wisdom than I have now, though? No, all things in their own time and I am glad to be here now, though I can’t help think back a bit on some earlier writings that never even saw typeface much less Secretary Clinton’s desk. (Still waiting on a reply but in fairness to the Secretary I have since moved so the error is understandable.) Walk with me!
One of my earlier literary triumphs was winning an essay contest about Patriot’s Day in the 6th grade. This holiday, for those of you who did not, unlike me, grow up in New England, is not a big deal, like at all. Tell that to 12 year old me who got that day off school to watch the Boston Marathon and decided it would Win Friends and Influence People if I did so with the entirety of my Language Arts class all accessorized in free hats! I accordingly set myself with determination to an essay about Patriot’s Day that garnered the winner the above accolades, which essay may incidentally contain more info about Patriot’s Day than many other resources you’d think would, such as for example a calendar, where it does not actually appear. Unfortunately for someone with an imminently Google-able name, the search results upon searching me for MANY years after resulted in the picture of an acne-laden middle schooler with a winning hat not doing her massive head any favors accepting a trophy on the front page of the Middlesex News. Good times. I am just now remembering I was also the Standard Bearer in 4th grade, so I got to make mornings arriving at school even more stressful by needing to be there early to raise the flag up the pole when I had up til that point barely managed to ever get there on time, and which honor was won via what else but an essay contest, so I must have emerged victorious in another one then but I don’t remember writing it at all or have any idea where I might locate that winning work - so if you get anything regurgitated here (which I am contemplating doing in subsequent newsletters if this compendium hasn't made that clear yet), it’ll be that alleged Patriot’s Day one, and for goodness sake do not Google me. Having a name that otherwise predominantly Welsh people in Wales hold is tough on a therapist in the U.S.A. trying to maintain confidentiality and some boundaries, EXTRA tough on a 9th grader at a new high school trying to adopt a fresh, less-nerdy persona amongst people who did not yet know that I would one day likely try to win their friendship via essay writing (the more things change, right?!).
What I really love, to be honest, is a schtick. Something I wish I had saved is the weekly newsletters I would write as a high school camp counselor of preschoolers, to summarize the highlights of their progeny’s week to their adoring parents. These newsletters were genuine fire - I picked a theme, like the Olympics or the rainbow or Caillou or whatever the heck toddlers were into in the early aughts, and I made that thing SING. Every kid was spotlighted, puns were made, patterns were followed, and I was given my laurels (everything happened but that last one). High schoolers were also in charge of typing up, assembling, and disseminating the weekly paper so unclear if our little Fontleroys’ forebears ever even read it, but my co-counselors DID give me a second free period on Thursdays to bang it out and that was reward enough (especially if it meant getting out of Fishing, confinement on a wobbly dock with armed 4 year olds is not for the weak of hotdog bait). Alas, these scribbled missives are lost to the recycling bins of history - that, or a local garbage-cum-art collector has it pinned up to a Talent Wall, my childhood fantasy when my parents would retire my schoolwork to the bin after a brief stint of fridge glory (as the parent to an elementary schooler now myself, however genius his letters and lines may be, I can finally say okay guys, I get it. This did, however, wound me at the time).
Even more of a bummer to have lost is the completely rewritten manuscript of MacBeth, turned MacBethan, that my friend and I populated with perfectly cast roles of every member of our freshman English class, including our stalwart teacher Mr. Eslick. We looked for that thing for years - in every conceivable email account, and there weren’t that many to conceive of at the time, on MySpace, on my friend’s dad’s dial-up desktop that we’d polished a draft on one sleepover night - it’s gone, also relegated to the annals of tech and maybe the Cloud, ne’er to return.
Another early work was also co-written, this time with a middle school bestie and with mostly the express purpose of joshing our other middle school bestie, which was mean and we’re very sorry. It was also hilarious, and we cried laughing writing it, and maybe still exists because my co-author’s mom is extremely organized and sentimental in lovely ways but I’m scared to ask because it almost definitely isn’t as caustically witty as I’m remembering it (our heroine’s character had a lot of fiery flatulence as I recall, that may not have always been delivered with the pitch perfect comedic timing these subjects require since we were like 11). Also, I think it did hurt our friend’s feelings even though she has always been a very good sport about everything, and I still love her a lot so she does not need to be bullied by an angsty preadolescent from the past (again) when we hopefully take a mom-daughter trip to go meet aforementioned co-author’s new baby soon!!! (Manifesting this, thank you for your juju dear readers.) There is also, of course, the graveyard of fights and breakups past that live in my Draft emails, and lamentably some even in my Sent. You will not be getting these, at least not until certain EX BOYFRIENDS see them first *finger wagging.* It really does help to type these out, it rarely helps to send them!!! Hope that helps.
What other notable words have been worded hm, one time I wrote a submission for an essay contest at McSweeney’s (your girl loves an essay contest) that I never actually turned in! It wasn’t very funny which is why I didn’t but I wish I had, why not. I had a blog when I studied abroad, and got a stipend to write a more academically bent blog at the same time - these too still exist on the internet, I checked. I took one (1) creative writing class in college, hence entitling me to your time and energy reading me on here, you are welcome. There is a tragic backstory to one particular piece of flash fiction I wrote in that class that I may share here one day. I wrote a scathing essay about birth order when I was genuinely mad about the same that as I mentioned in my last post, the New Yorker mysteriously did not want for their Shouts and Murmurs, Thoughts and Prayers to the Shouts and Murmurs editor who will surely rue the day. Anyway, y’all will probably get that too, but my computer is about to die and I’m committing very loosely to weekly essays here so let me send this one out before I no longer can/would have to traverse STAIRS for a charger, egads! Have a wonderful Monday! xx
MacBethan must have been an absolute masterpiece, what a bummer that it's become a lost manuscript!!!