I recently started watching Game of Thrones—yes, I know I’m way late to the party—and something said in the first episode stood out to me. Jon Snow was born a bastard and believed himself to be inferior to his half-siblings.
“Let me give you some advice, bastard,” a dwarf named Tyrion Lannister says to him. “Never forget what you are…wear it like armor. And it can never be used to hurt you.”
Those words remind me of my writing journey. I was in tenth grade the first time I said I was going to write a book. It got scrapped after a few pages. I tried again in twelfth grade—that one fizzled after about thirty pages. Two more attempts came and went with similar results. It’s not that I didn’t have a story idea, it’s that the words on the page didn’t feel authentic. Then, in the summer of 2013, I decided to take another stab at it, but this time, I did something different.
Growing up, there was manipulation and emotional abuse in the house. My parents constantly fought. And if my dad did something nice for me, my mom would find a way to belittle me in retaliation. It was a lose-lose situation, and sometimes emotional neglect was the better option. On top of that, when I was between the ages of five and eight, I was molested by a neighbor. A year later, I saw a commercial that told kids it was wrong and to tell an adult if it happened. I thought it was too late because we had moved 1,500 miles away. So, for years, that secret haunted me in silence.
To cope with my trauma, I created this complex imaginary world. It was my escape. My safe place. It housed my dreams of being truly loved. My fantasies of being someone else. It guarded my deepest desires and secret wishes. My mind resided there 24/7. At school. Home. Church. Everywhere. I was playing pretend in my mind. I was never me, including my name—which, by the way, was not Amélie. And nobody knew it. But that was how I coped, how I survived.
When I first started writing, my imaginary world was off-limits. It was private. I had dreams people wouldn’t understand. Fantasies that could be judged in the harshest of ways. I couldn’t risk my safe place being ridiculed. So, I kept it locked up from the world. Protected.
But in doing so, all of my heart—my passion—was also constrained. And as a result, my writing came off as flat. I couldn’t have my characters think, believe, or do something outrageous. I was so worried someone would read my work and say, “Oh my God, that’s what goes on in her mind? She has some serious ‘daddy’ issues.” The ultimate judgment. Ridicule. I was afraid to be vulnerable.
But in the summer of 2013, my fifth attempt at writing a book, I held my breath and tapped into my imaginary world. Like magic, my characters came to life. The good. The bad. And definitely the ugly. I still had a lot of craft and technique I needed to learn, but my characters now had heart. Passion. They were flawed and exposed. My imagination was naked and unprotected from the judgment of others.
Judgment. That leads to rejection. Ostracism. That’s a really scary thought. But to me, something even scarier is never allowing the stories in my head to come to fruition because of my fear of persecution. The protagonist in my first manuscript dealt with abandonment, body image, and trust issues. Allowing access to the most sensitive parts of my heart made her more genuine, but it also gave me confidence. Courage to step out on a limb. The knowledge that no matter what anyone says or thinks, I know I’m a good writer. Wearing my past, my trauma, my name change…my “daddy issues” like armor made me stronger. Because when you embrace what you consider to be your greatest defect, using Tyrion Lannister’s words, “It can never be used to hurt you.”
About the Author
Amélie Corner is a young adult fantasy and contemporary writer. Make-believe has always been a part of her life. It’s what got her through childhood trauma. And while the stories she writes are fiction, the emotional responses of the characters have very real roots. Self-loathing ran rampant, so much so that she cringed every time she heard her birth name. In 2014 she took charge and legally changed it. A new name and a new start on the path to self-love. Amélie is currently wrapping up her latest manuscript and jotting down notes from other characters in her head, demanding their stories be told. Relatively new to Virginia, when not writing, she enjoys exploring Richmond and Williamsburg with her husband and four children, taking her two dogs out on trails, and wine tasting.