Then there is the other kind of aboutness. There’s this question of what is the story About with a capital A ~ Michael Chabon

Story Challenge | Week Eleven | Aboutness and "creating like the word," because when you see me, I exist, and when you see all of me, all of me exists

Polaroid | Annie Spratt

Happenings & Other Stuff

🗓️ Yay!! It’s almost time for our Story Challenge LIVE SALON on Zoom—coming up Saturday March 2, 11-Noon CT! We’ll celebrate our hard work with some flash readings, a Q & A, and more (Zoom link sent 2 hrs ahead to all founders; manage your subscription options here & let us know you’re coming in the comments (& ask questions if you’ve got ’em!)

✍🏼 Our next seasonal intensive for paid subscribers, The Visceral Self, is going to be absolutely amazing. It starts April 3 and is devoted to embodied writing using safe, creative techniques that elevate our work and our lives, even through the hard stuff. Get all the info you need here and here and here and here, and please join us!

💕 Also, there’s something about today & love, so you should know: I love you.

I can’t believe Story Challenge is almost over—next week is our last! We’ll be talking about endings! And that will be exhilarating and fun.

As for today, we’re supposed to be discussing aboutness. And we will. But for many writers, myself included, aboutness is more a process of discovery than one we can predetermine.

Perhaps that’s in part why I cannot write about aboutness in our stories without first telling you directly what has been happening in my life for the past 24 hours. Or maybe I’m just in shock. Because it feels utterly central to the core aboutness of my own life story. An aboutness that’s been coursing inside me for literally as long as I can remember. If you follow me on Notes, you might have seen my shock about this yesterday.

Now that I’ve slept on it, I am ready to ask myself, what is this core story about?

Is it about silence? Threats? Abuse? Power? Trauma? Vindication?

I’m still working it out, as I have been for the past 50 years.

I’ll start with a backward review of what happened yesterday.

1. At 12:14 PM Central time, I received an email from a senior court clerk with an attached PDF containing the public portion of the criminal record of my former stepfather’s 1985 felony conviction for criminal sexual misconduct.

2. I had requested this record via phone and email almost six months ago, on September 1, 2023. Yesterday’s email was the first response I received. It began with the words, “Thank you for your patience while we located this older record.”

3. I requested this record because the editors of Dorothy Parker’s Ashes asked me for it when they accepted my essay, “What My Father Knew,” for publication in their “Fathers” issue, which went live on September 8, 2023.

4. The reason I had submitted my essay to Dorothy Parker’s Ashes is because, although it had already run in Los Angeles Review of Books in May 2022, it was pulled when the wealthy boyfriend of my half-sister emailed the editors there to suggest I was making false claims about my biological father, who took no action to protect me from my stepfather’s abuse, despite having knowledge of it.

5. I wrote about all this in an essay called “The Cost” which was published in Ilanot Review in May 2023 and also recently nominated for Best American Essays. Earlier, the Ilanot editors had already nominated “The Cost” for Best of the Net. The editors of Ilanot Review said, “We believe you.”

6. When I was unable to obtain the record in time for DPA’s “Fathers” issue, the (rockstar) editors ran my essay anyway. The editors of DPA said, “We believe you.”

7. The record I obtained is not about me. My stepfather was never convicted for his six years of abuse of me because neither my mother nor my biological father filed a police report when I disclosed the abuse to them in 1982. They kicked me out of the house instead. I spent much of high school living with teachers, friends, other concerned adults, and, eventually, foster care.

8. The conviction I obtained pertains to my stepfather’s criminal sexual misconduct toward his next stepdaughter, whom, according to his own confession in the PDF, he abused for four years until she told her mother. During those four years, he said he abused her approximately 50 times.

9. 50 times.

10. My stepfather lived with me for six years. I was four when he moved in, ten when he moved out. The felony record I got yesterday is not about me, it is about another girl. But it is about me. I am also that other girl. All of us who have been through this are the same girl. To note, my stepfather has never denied what he did to me. He just hasn’t been held to legal account for it.

11. If my mother or biological father had reported the abuse to the police instead of kicking me out, it is possible or likely the next stepdaughter could have been spared much sooner, or possibly not abused at all. Nonetheless, neither my mother nor father (along with some other members of my original family) speak to me at all.

So, again, what is this story about? Today, maybe this:

This is a story about a girl with the gifts of fire and words. She treasures these gifts because they protect her from a bad man. But her parents, fearing it all—the fire, the words, the man—banish her. Afraid of further banishment, the girl smothers her flames and grows (almost) silent. Then, one day, babies start growing inside her, so near to where her gifts of fire and words languish. The babies poke the old words with their miniature feet. They spark their bony elbows against the old stardust, smoldering. The girl—now a woman, begins to glow. She begins to speak. It hurts, but she does not stop. Instead, she learns to make new things from her fire and words combined. She calls these things truth. She calls these things herself.

Long ago, I said to my husband, these words:

When you see me, I exist. When you see all of me, all of me exists.

These words were a spell then. They are a spell now.

The spell abracadabra is of unknown origin, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary, its first known occurrence is in the second-century works of Serenus Sammonicus.

Several folk etymologies are associated with the word: from phrases in Hebrew that mean “I will create as I speak,” or Aramaic "I create like the word" (אברא כדברא).

I create like the word.

Oh, how I love that. Thank you for being witness to my creation and to my words. Thank you for warming your hands around our virtual campfire.

You are the reason.

Thank you.

No one does this alone.

If you are learning to combine words and fire, or want to, I hope you’ll stick around and maybe become a paid subscriber in order to join the party behind the paywall, where the fullness of community happens in safety from internet trolls. You can also give a gift subscription or donate one in honor of someone else who could benefit from the incredible power of doing language around the fire.

Story Challenge Week Eleven: Aboutness

Now, let’s finally talk about the aboutness in your stories (whether real or fiction). I can’t wait for you to work with this week’s tools, because aboutness is so vast and hard to find, even harder to hold (as my efforts above surely exemplify!).

Therefore, this week I bring you four tools:

1. My own exacting tool for aboutness, based on what I’ve learned querying and pitching

2. A bonus aboutness exercise that’s basic but essential—I call it Big Shapes

3. A famous fiction writer’s “f*ck you” philosophy of aboutness

4. A bonus exercise that takes us all the way back to the spirit of week one and the joyous fun we had with Little Red Riding Hood—you are going love this one (and so am I!)

I can’t wait to see what you drum up, so please do share in the comments (including your questions about aboutness). I’ll be hanging out there today and through the week, trying to keep up with you.

And thank you again for everything. I love you so.