003: from experience!

on writing from experience

When I was twelve and in the 7th grade, my parents enrolled me in local ballroom dancing and etiquette classes. At 7 pm on a Tuesday in September, I, along with nearly a hundred other twelve-year-olds in the county, stood awkwardly beside their friends or parents in their fanciest clothes and white gloves waiting for instruction from the short and perky old man who had been teaching these classes for longer than my parents had been alive (both of whom managed to avoid going to, I was not so lucky). The community center building was filled with the smell of sweaty pre-teens and far too much Victoria’s Secret body mist. My mom tried coaxing me off of the plastic folding chair along the perimeter of the building, set up for parents to sit and watch their children waltz under fluorescent lights with the opposite gender for an hour.

My too-grown-up body was fighting to be seen, hips wider than my classmates, and my sports bra not working hard enough to flatten my chest underneath the black dress from Goodwill that only cost $4.49. Short sleeve, to the knee, high collar neckline, no embellishments, slinky fabric that clung to my plump and growing body in a god-awful way but was at least soft and called as little attention as possible. Frizzy brushed hair in a ponytail. Braces concealed with a closed mouth. No makeup because it was more embarrassing to wear it wrong and look stupid than wear none at all. White gloves to my wrists to follow the dress code (luckily protecting my poor delicate hands from having to touch a boy, a horrid thought).

“I’m not getting up,” I whispered to my mom. I imagine I was quite a grumpy sight to behold, arms crossed, slouching back in the bowing plastic chair, too quiet to hear over the chatter and music blasting from the speakers in each corner of the building.

“We’ve already paid,” Mom said. Dammit. She got me there. I hated the thought of wasting my parents’ money. I could go for the refund rebuttal next if needed. “Your friends are here, you can stand near them.”

I’d fought back the urge to roll my eyes. My friends were thin, fashionable, knew how to wear makeup, and worst of all wanted to be there. They even had on heels? Is that true, or even possible? My leather brown flats cracked near the toes and smelled horrific from wearing them to school most days, including the walk home. Did I smell? Did I remember to put on deodorant?

“I’m not getting up,” I repeated. Mom sat beside me. I knew better to think she would give up that quickly. I’d have to make a scene to get out of this. And then I’d have to actually make a scene. And deal with the aftermath.

“Okay, what if you need to write a scene about ballroom dancing for your story one day?”

Ears officially perked. Good play, Mom.

“My characters would never ballroom dance,” I said, sliding further, wishing I’d worn my hair down to hide behind the brushed-out curls.

“Perfect, sounds like you wouldn’t either. You’ll have the perfect POV. Don’t want to go dance for you, or me, or your friends? Then do it for writing experience. Up you go.”

I begrudgingly did ballroom dancing every Tuesday night for the next two and a half years. I have never written a ballroom dancing scene. But I probably will. And I won’t be writing about the twelve-year-old BO smell of our local community center or the anxious energy that passed through the shoulders and hands of the boys’ arms I had to touch while dancing with them or how every other dance partner the girls had was dancing with air because there weren’t enough boys enrolled.

I likely won’t write about the impossible itchy feeling of flea bites on the backs of my thighs and on the right side of my neck from when my cat had fleas.

I likely won’t write about how when a neighbor screamed at me for parking in front of their house and then I peed my pants and had to dry them under the hand dryer in the bathroom before class.

I likely won’t write about breaking my pinky finger running up the stairs when I was seven before a San Francisco Giants baseball game and sat on the ferry ride with my hand in a cup of ice the whole way because I didn’t want to miss it.

I don’t believe that I have to write from experience to be a good writer. I write from my imagination every day. I write about fictional fantasy lands that don’t exist and an overpopulation of dragons that destroy villages. I don’t need to write from experience- I can’t write from experience when I haven’t experienced any of these things.

But the fictional fantasy lands look remarkably like the Northern Californian valley I grew up in. And the overpopulation of dragons that destroy villages are an awful lot like the wildfires that have obliterated my hometown year after year. And when a friend pointed out my protagonist was autistic-coded I didn’t agree with her because my protagonist’s POV was largely from my experience, I shortly thereafter got my own autism diagnosis, extending the same label to my spunky and noise-sensitive Halfling protagonist.

In book two she’ll have to go to a ball. And dance. With her too-big feet and frizzy hair and be too worried she’ll smell bad.

I don’t need to write from experience. But I sure do, even when I don’t realize it.