I Give You Permission to Not Give Up on A Story...
I used to love to write from the dark. Dark dark dark. Movies I made were dark, and short stories I wrote were dark, and the light to me was a sham and bubble gum b******t. I loved short stories because they were weird and perverse, and usually dark. I wanted to be as weird and dark as I could be, I stayed in that space for a long time until my life in itself was darkness and then I was living in the dark. I desperately clawed to find the light. I know that sounds kind of hokey but it was true, and now that I am in my fifties, I truly want to be only in the light. That said, I confess I have my ups and downs, trauma triggers, panic attacks and moments when my nervous system takes over and won’t calm the f**k down. I doubt in this lifetime my make up will ultimately change, but I get to love on and appreciate those parts of me because they push me even closer to that desire for light. They are the messengers but they are not the harbingers of grief. The protection mechanisms I had in the dark can speak to me, but I get to balance them in the light. What does this have to do with storytelling? After I wrote my book about sexual abuse and published it in 2023, I was free. I had written a self help book I felt was essential for the recovery spiritually, emotionally and physically for sexual abuse survivors. It worked for me, and I believe it will work for any survivor who wants a new life in the light. Then I discovered how many women don’t give themselves permission to be the greatest versions of themselves because they are buried in what I call Gunk. So I wrote a book about Permission, happiness and wealth (hence the column you are now reading), and it is a wonderful follow up to the life I can lead after so much darkness. Keep your fingers crossed I find a fabulous agent and/or editor who understands and champions the book because women need this message. Now I am endeavoring to be a romance writer, and here is the best part about that twist. It’s not a twist at all. The Universe has been strumming their fingers on the desk waiting for me to catch up to all the versions of this career I have started and stopped. It’s hard to write about romance in a light way when the love for yourself or others is in a dark place. Sure, you can write the darker movies where love doesn’t conquer all, but I like when love works. I like happy endings. I like when the light and the dark make the dawn. I was reminded today that a romance novel I am writing that involves horses and Malibu was actually first gestated in 1998 in a week long holiday in Haiku, the Upcountry of Maui, Hawai'i. Fields dotted with the spikey tops of pineapples and the smell of sodden soil was the topography high above the green frothed Pacific Ocean. I had seen a sign in the one road town for a rodeo, and that was all that I had needed to rush back to my rental and put down on paper my lone cowboy looking for love. But I recall it was like writing through mud, and I made a decision about myself. I can’t write about love. I am too dark. We make decisions about who we are as writers in places and spaces that truly are calling for a more emotional and psychological healing. Our original writer self is simply overshadowed by the trauma. So many of my clients have blocks in their writing not because they are not writers or shouldn’t be writing about the topic, but because there is a deeper wound and an underlying cause that forces them to buck up against the literary assignments given. Some people I can pull from the fire, and other people just burn up and let themselves be devoured by the pain. They ultimately need to want to save themselves and believe in their writer spirit. My current romance novel that I decided was ready to be written needed a vocation for the male love interest. Like all good romance books that I am reading as research such as Emily Henry and Abbie Jimenez, tension is created between the potential love interests and they also heal each other. My friend Meta, also a writer, suggested he has horses. I mean randomly she said this one day sitting in her backyard having one of our conversations about writing. “His horses keep coming onto her property and it drives her nuts…” she said. While I won’t run with that exact story line, now I was recalling many parts of this puzzle over a lifetime. Attending a coaching event in Arizona and learning about equine therapy and thinking it was bunk. Deeply interested in race horses, and even considering buying into a share of one on an app lately. The fact that as a little girl I rode horses and it saved my life for a little while. I couldn’t stop thinking about the equine therapy that I now recalled, and I googled therapists in Malibu. Sure enough I found a ranch and the owner and I connected. Shock of shocks, her main clientele are from trauma. She had also been sexually assaulted as a young girl. My people. As I asked her about me riding horses as a young girl, she said it balanced my nervous system and settled me down so I felt safe. It makes sense because when I stopped riding horses and showing in dressage and show jumping, I turned to drugs and alcohol. They became the main stage for my nervous system regulation. And we know how good that turns out… So I am now understanding that the Universe is sending me all the nuggets and signs and they are in the joy of creation. I could turn my back on them and get worried it’s not the right path, and I should know and left brain the f**k out of the narrative, but I also think its time to not turn away from the light but rather let the sun fall on my face and my keys to fly across the keyboard. Here’s a question for you reader: Where has a story popped up and then gone away and then popped up again twenty years or more later for you? Or even something you did, and discarded that a person in your world then re-fired up for you? I would love to hear from you in the comments! Let’s open this discussion up! Our connection to our peers as writers is very deep. When we have a circle that hears our evolution in our writing, they can mirror back to us, even what they didn’t now about our past narrative and writing dreams. That is because it is in our aura. We wear our stories in our hearts and they come through in the essence of who we are. So based on my convo with my writer friend, and the history of me writing about a horse guy in Haiku, I booked an equine therapy session with the gal in Malibu. I am going at the end of month as research but also to reconnect myself to the horse who has a heart 8 to 10 times bigger than the human heart, and no judgement because they have no pre-frontal cortex. I am going to deepen in at a ranch in Malibu and allow me, and my female character in my romance novel take flight. If I told you I wasn’t scared, I would be lying. What happens if I start crying and never stop? I give myself permission to find this story. It deserves the light. I give myself permission to take the time the novel needs to grow and deepen. To be as insular, and as prolific and restless as I need to be as a writer. Find that story you discarded again. Let the words sift through your fingers like hot desert sand. Treat it with reverence and then fling it on the page to be then owned by you. Possess your writing. It’s yours. If you are interested in the Human Design that I walked about in my video, please check out Stephanie Zhong at https://www.stephaniezhong.com Get full access to Give Yourself Permission at igiveyoupermission.substack.com/subscribe
