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THE WRITER'S CLOSETS
by
ALLISON STARKWEATHER
Coming out of the closet is a phrase most frequently associated with
the gay and lesbian community, and the moment when a member reveals the
truth about their sexuality to family and friends who are not gay, and
might not understand being gay. It's the most widely known closet, the
most widely understood, the most widely talked about.
But gays are not the only ones with closets. As writers, we each have
our own closets that we hide in. It's there when a stranger or
acquaintance sees you jotting notes in a notebook and asks what you're
writing, and you answer, "Oh--just stuff," when in your heart you want
nothing more than to pull this person down next to you and tell them
all the gory, wonderful details of the latest plot twist that you just
came up with. It's there when you sugar-coat your story or your
characters because you're afraid of being too outrageous for the
everyday people who show interest in it.
I've got several closets of my own. I have managed to gather my courage
and my faithful friends and step out of several of them, but not all.
Several years ago, it was rare to go a week at school without one of my
peers asking me what I spent so much time scribbling in my notebooks
about. For a long, long time I let them believe that it was a diary,
that I recorded nothing more outlandish than my own thoughts and the
events of my day between the pages of those books. I hated it. Writing
is a part of me, a huge aspect of my life. I hated that my skin went
clammy with terror whenever anyone asked about my writing. I hated that
the thing I loved caused me such fear in the face of others. I worried
constantly. What would they think, if I told them I was a writer? Would
they think I was pretentious? Would they demand to see my publishing
credits, and then denounce me as a fraud when I had to admit that I had
nothing but a drive full of MSWord documents on my computer?
Finally, I got sick of it. A student in my biology class asked me what
I wrote in my notebooks. I told him--"Stories." He asked if he could
read some. The terror returned, then I grit my teeth and told him yes,
when all I wanted was to spout off an excuse about why that wouldn't be
possible, and keep my writing hidden safely on my hard drive where it
wouldn't be able to gather criticism.
I was faced with another closet on the first day of my junior-year
creative writing class. The teacher went around the room, asking
everyone for their name and what they liked to write. Paralysis struck
again. I am a novelist, and I have been since I first started writing.
But the voices in the back of my head screamed at me, insisting that it
would be suicide to tell these people, most of whom were in the class
because it was the only available elective, that not only did I
write--I wrote novels.
I didn't come out of that closet that day. When my turn came, I smiled
and said I write short stories just like everyone else who had chosen
to be there, and hated that I'd sold myself short. This is a closet
that I'm still not out of. I'm making progress--I'm standing in the
thin sliver of light that sneaks between the door and the frame, and
every once in a while I gather my courage and stick my head out and
peer around, taking stock of the landscape, getting a feel for what
it's like to be out in the open. It's dangerous out there. It's much
more vulnerable out in the open than it is hidden safely within the
walls of your closet. You can get hurt when you're open and honest.
That's the danger of the open, and the lure of the closet. If you're
quiet and you act like everyone else, you can't be touched. You're
protected.
But there's much to be said for the freedom of honesty. It's a
wonderful place to be. It's a wonderful feeling, to make a commitment
to tell the truth about yourself, come what may.
I have been seriously writing for over four years, and in that time,
I've made much progress. I've abandoned some closets completely. Some,
like my novel closet, I'm still keeping around for comfort's sake. I
like to know that I have somewhere to fall back on, someplace to hide
and shield myself, if all hell breaks loose.
And I have one closet that I have made next to no forward progress on
at all. Instead of walking forward, I have fortified myself within its
walls and surrounded it with a moat and set archers along the tops of
the walls, and I cling to the darkness and safety as tight as if it
were a life preserver and I a drowning woman. This closet is the one
about my genre.
I write erotica. Not exclusively, but heavily. I enjoy it. And the
thought of a non-writer's reaction to that news terrifies the hell out
of me. No one but my closest, most trusted friends know that I write
erotica, because I have seen public opinion and reaction, and I am
terrified that my news will be greeted with shrieks of "Oh my God, you
write porn?" I
couldn't stand to have my writing, my pleasure, be scorned and
belittled so.
It only makes it worse that I'm a minor. I'll be eighteen in November
of 2003, only three months away from the writing of this article, but
as far as my country and the State of California are concerned, I am a
child, unable to think for myself and make decisions for myself and
legally prohibited from reading a genre that I enjoy. In the eyes of
99% of the adults around me, I am a child, and I need protecting. If I
told them I write erotica, I'd fear that they would extrapolate from
that and assume that means I sleep around just as often as my
characters do. Non-writers have a nasty habit of assuming that a writer
is his characters. Obviously, if such a complex creature came from the
writer's mind, then the writer and the character must be one and the same.
This could not be more false, nor more damaging. This one assumption is
the root of much of my fear of sharing my writing with others. Try as I
might, I worry, "What will they think about me? Nice girls don't write
about sex. Nice girls don't do horrible things to their characters.
Nice girls don't write about teenage pregnancy and kinky sex and
characters who enjoy
it." And, growing up in modern suburban America, I can't help it. Some
part of my subconscious has a need to be perceived as a nice girl.
My parents know that I write. They know that I write novels, and that
I've completed almost seven of them. But they don't know that I write
erotica, and to be honest, I'm not sure if they ever will. Sex is very
personal, and by extension, so is erotica. I could very easily be hurt
by a callus comment, and that is why I protect myself within my closet.
It's too easy and too likely that I'll be hurt by the ones whose
opinions matter most to me. And in this moment, I'd rather live in fear
than in pain.
Closets are havens, safe places you can go to find protection and
acceptance. But they're limiting; relying upon them gives a false
impression of who you are to those around you, and you deserve to be
able to be honest without the fear of rejection and criticism. Take the
first step outside of your closets. Take a risk; tell the truth. Be
yourself. You can always retreat if the shrapnel starts flying, and you
never know; your family and friends just might surprise you.
Copyright © 2003, Allison
Starkweather. All rights reserved.
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