#writing elsewhere

hi leah!! thank you so much for asking 💙 

so... i started writing stories when i was seven. most of them, i never finished, or i would lose interest halfway through and bring the story to an abrupt end (like, ”they were going to save the princess, but they were hungry, so they all went home and they never came back”). the stories were usually about ghosts and witches, haunted houses and portals to other worlds, kids making friends with magical beings and solving dangerous mysteries... 

and then i started writing about a girl who became friends with ghosts from another world, where they went to battle wicked witches by solving dangerous mysteries. i wrote a complete book, thousands of words handwritten on lined paper, which i tore out of my notebook, taped together, took to school, and presented to the only girl who was consistently nice to me in third grade. and she loved it.

so i wrote a sequel. and then another. and then another. and then another. i wrote a whole series, and my friend and i would sit under tables during indoor recess and i would watch her read my books, and i lived for the feeling i got when something i’d written made her eyes widen, or when she would gasp and point at the text, or when she would ask, “what happens next?” 

i stopped updating the series by the time the school year ended. i had moved on to other interests, and i transferred schools, so my audience was gone. i had given away most of the books i’d made as gifts, so i didn't (and still don't) have enough left to share them with other people.

that world and those characters have lived in the back of my mind for over a decade, but it’s only recently that i’ve picked up the project again. i’m starting all over, and i’m sharing it in the same spirit as i originally had— a gift for whoever might be moved by it. i’ll be posting it online for free, in its entirety, as a series of short episodes. i know which direction the story is going, but it currently has no fixed ending, and although the main characters are quite young, i am writing with an adult audience in mind.

elsewhere is a simultaneously dark and lighthearted story about four young girls who go on adventures in a troubled world occupied by ghosts. these ghosts often take the shape of supernatural creatures— mermaids, fairies, vampires, etc.— and they are terrorized by various villains, including a murderous witch intent on destroying their world. the girls respond to disasters and try to prevent future ones, investigate the interconnected mysteries of the world, and keep each other anchored in the chaos of it all.

at its heart, elsewhere is about friendship. it is also about ghosts. it is about being lost. it is about finding people, and supporting them as they find themselves. it is about deciding what to do with the time you have left. it is about reconciling the person you were in the past with the person you are now and the person you’re trying to be.

This is such a wonderful experience for me, especially revisiting the way I used to think as a child! As a writer, I’ve become overly cautious with my work over the past few years— overthinking it, worrying too much about congruency, overworking every little detail. That definitely has its benefits, as people have commented to me that my characters come off incredibly realistic and that my prose is some of the most annotatable stuff out there (not that I’m like super proud of it or anything pfft what a wild idea), but then I don't generate very much content and I get stuck.

Little me did not have this problem, because she wrote primarily for joy and was not afraid of seeming silly. I had this blind confidence that I could make anything seem cool if I was a skilled enough writer, and to be honest, Elsewhere is some of the best stuff I have ever produced. I mean, yeah, there are plot holes and inconsistencies cause I was eight years old, but it’s so wildly imaginative because I would just literally write whatever came into my head without trying to make sense of it, and that shameless style produced a vibrant world full of some of the most interesting concepts I’ve ever come up with.

(I’m avoiding details in this reply because I don't want to spoil anything for when I start posting the story! I don’t want to take away from the impact at all!)

Elsewhere is also just… I don’t know, I wouldn’t simplify it to “sweet”, but it is… so very tender. Surprisingly so. I mean, as a child, I was obsessed with friendship, so it makes sense that I would create a story so strongly built on that, but now that I’m rereading the “episodes” I saved, I’m repeatedly surprised at my younger self and sincerely touched by some of the things she wrote, even as an adult.

It’s very healing to read, even when it’s sad. In editing it, I’m actually less concerned with improving it and far more concerned with doing it justice.