Who ARE You?

This weekend, I attended the SCBWI 2018 Conference in New York City. The first intensive I took was a unique one--we had the opportunity to share our query letters and first page with two active agents. We had four minutes of their time. Two minutes to share our page aloud to the group and two for feedback. For a writer still discovering the avenues it takes to get traditionally published, it was a chance that was too good to be true.

And that’s where they get you.

After an excruciating wait, I shared my query in progress for the book that has been both the curse and delight of my existence these past few years. I knew to remove myself from the critique--I always do that. It is habit now to keep my mouth shut and write down what the person critiquing has to say about it. That way, I have a chance to process it and take what I need.

At first, the response from the agents was overwhelmingly positive. One even threw out an accidental, “and if you had just changed one part, then I would have asked for a full manuscript.” At that point, I was barely sure what I needed to write down. That’s a lot of good news to hear in a two minute critique of a half-page query.

Then came the question that caught me off-guard.

“I know this is a good story. It is timely, too. But, I am caught feeling concerned about the Own Voices movement. Why are you the one qualified to write it?”

In my critique mode, I was stunned. I was prepared to talk about the work. I was prepared to answer questions about the content or the book itself. I had completely removed myself from the process of critique. So I said nothing. I simply nodded and typed the words, “Who are you?” on my notepad and let it sink down into my core.

Only an hour earlier, I had been sitting at a keynote where Dan Santat shared where his journey of being an author and illustrator had taken him. And his first slide on that topic was not about who he was or how he started, but a single black slide with the white words, “Who are you?”

After the session, I looked at my piece of work and wondered where the "me" part had gone in the manuscript. After years of research and editing and sensitivity readers and redrafting to create whole characters, I could only think of my characters as separate from myself.

Instead of my characters, I imagined myself as Alice walking through the grass and flowers only to stumble onto the mushroom patch. A hookah-smoking caterpillar would enunciate the words and let the spelling drift into my face.

“Who ARE you?”

I choked in my session, but I am happy I did not say anything. In the past few months, the story of my turbulent life has been discovered by my writer’s group. I’ve shared round-about avenues, well-designed storefronts on my life. And every glimmer of the dark glass windows they see, they have shaken their heads and said, “You need to write a memoir.”

And I’ve replied, “I wouldn’t be able to without a therapist.”

No, I do not have the physical qualities that makes Olivia hated by her family. No, I do not share Anton’s blind eyes and illegal immigrant status. When it comes to the heart of my story, I do not have a grandmother who hates me or a criminal underlord controlling my life. I have never walked in the trappings of an extinct London fog or spoken to an 1877 Devil’s Acre street urchin. To me, these trappings were all metaphors. Really, really well-researched metaphors that I crafted with care for those who actually do experience those things.

Instead, I have the memories of a girl who spent her teenage years running away. I’ve lived in old houses whose creaking floorboards I have memorized because I was unable to speak to my own family. I’ve known what it’s like to be left behind when your family has moved ahead of you. I’ve known what it’s like to carry my life in a single suitcase. I’ve stolen. I’ve slept in graveyards. I’ve gotten into fist fights. I’ve been in love and lost it.

Who am I? I am my memories. I am the people who have hurt me and who have saved me. The abuse of my childhood, it is in my story. The cult I was conditioned to respect and fear as a young girl, from that clay I made Nuru’s underworld. I modeled part of Anton like the woman who was my high school hero: someone both blind and capable. The Brico I have molded from every person I know who suffers from invisible disabilities, including myself. And as much as I have grounded some of the disabilities and struggles those with differing abilities face in reality, there is something fantastic they each gain in my world.

For me, fantasy has always given just that little bit more. It's been both a reflection of reality, and its solution.

On second look at my manuscript, I did think that the story needed more of me in it. It could always use more of the raw emotion I have hidden in its corridors. But, as for the agent who asked me why I am the one to write it, I have only one thing to say:

"It is my story."