In the Beginning…

Self-portrait taken in honor of my 40th birthday. A self-published author, entrepreneur, mother, psychology PhD, wife, and rooster mom—it’s wild how much can change over the course of one’s life.

I wrote all the time. Songs, stories, poetry and at later ages fanfiction. (Yes, fanfiction. Entire blended worlds of Sailor Moon, Mortal Kombat, Xena, and more.) I journaled, practiced stream-of-consciousness writing, did everything I could to escape reality with the tools I had (e.g., my imagination).

But before I continue, I want to preface a few things. Call this a content warning.

My writing journey isn’t a bright and happy one. This blog entry will touch topics such as early childhood abuse (both physical and emotional), internalized shame, and the emotional process of recognizing trauma and working to overcome it.

If you’re not in the mental space to handle such topics, please stop reading here. While I’ve reclaimed my journey, turning it into inspiration for Ves’ story and sewing parts of it into the characters across The Four Realms, I never wish to harm with any of the words I write.

And written word is powerful. I cannot, in good conscious, wield such a power without due consideration of others.

Spoiler: Despite the dark, I’m much happier and healthier now. So rest assured, this story does have a HEA. It just takes a while to get there.

To those who want to read on about the birth of The Fated Celestials Trilogy, strap in.

I can’t tell the story of how As Above, So Below came to be without going back decades.

I grew up in a strict (albeit not heavily religious) home. Filled with hard enforced gender roles, discouragement of all forms of self-expression, rampant racism, homophobia, and misogyny. It was very much the “children are seen and not heard” kind of environment. Part of me wants to say I had the commonplace experience of growing up middle class throughout the mid-to-late eighties and nineties, but as I got older, I realized this couldn’t be further from the truth.

My father was active duty. My mother a Filipino immigrant. On the outside, we appeared the idyllic American family: middle class, quiet neigbhors with a dog, and three children. I was the eldest.

My father’s discipline of choice was physical abuse. I won’t get into the horrific details, but there are numerous accounts where I lied about injuries I’d obtained when asked by friends or teachers because I didn’t know any better. I learned early to avoid lingering in my father’s company. My mother on the other hand, was emotionally abusive. (While she is not professionally diagnosed with NPD, as a psychology PhD, I am confident she would be were she to be assessed.) It took me much longer to recognize and identify the kind of harm she’s capable of.

As such, I spent much of my childhood alone. Older than my brother by 6 years, my sister by 7, there was little by means of companionship. So I turned inward and to books. Built worlds in my head, universes I could escape to. Many never took form on a page.

Others did. Worlds I could play in, explore questions I was afraid to ask, and process the reality I was given.

I hid who I was from my parents. I hid my questions, my developing thoughts and perspectives. Neither proved safe enough to be anything other than what they expected, resulting in hiding my writing as well.

I knew it would cause issue.

And when it was inevitably discovered, it certainly did.

The first incident of discovery resulted in a note from my father:

“If you’re going to write this kind of smut, find somewhere else to live.”

I was around 14 or 15, I want to say. Eighth grade. I’ll never forget the words. They evidenced, without a doubt, I was right in hiding who I was, what I wanted, or my interests from my parents. While I didn’t understand the literal (or implied) definition of smut at the time, I understood the tone of his message.

Come to learn, I didn’t write smut. (But, perhaps I did. He used the term in a pejorative manner to degrade what I’d written as unworthy and a waste of time. Which opens up a whole different conversation I don’t wish to get into currently.) What he’d found was fanfiction. Clean fanfiction at that. I knew about sex conceptually at the time, but had little interest in engaging in such activity (for lack of a better term). I was, in all essence, a quiet, nerdy girl who found better friends in books than she did people.

They were stories I shared with the few friends I had for no reason other than we could (and perhaps because there was little else do to in a town with a population of less than five thousand). They wrote too. We would spend study halls together filling pages upon pages, notebook after notebook of ridiculous (and likely terribly written) fanfiction.

My writing started well before the existence of AO3, and even fanfiction.net.

Even if it had been smut, now as a parent myself, I would think it better to encourage my son to explore and learn about his sexuality within the safety of pages before engaging dangerously with others.

I stopped keeping more than one notebook at home. Started leaving them in my lockers at school. During the summer, I had to decide: risk taking my writing home, or throw it away.

I think you might know what I chose. I threw much of it away. Choosing to keep a few notebooks I felt partial to.

The second incident of discovery happened around the age of 16.

The few notebooks I kept were found and I was degraded. My father, without complaint from my mother, proceeded to burn my work while forcing me to watch. Dropped them in the garbage burn barrel behind our house, poured lighter fluid over it, and threw a struck match. The entire time he berated me.

The entire time I cried.

I stopped writing after that.

Moved out. Legally emancipated myself.

Fell into adulthood at 16 as a ward of the state. I rented a bedroom from a friend’s grandmother while I finished high school, working part time for under-the-table pay at a local shop.

The years following, between the ages of 17 and 23, I went no-contact with my father, moved out of state several times, earned an Associate’s degree, took up a semi-successful career as a hair model, and made more than one mistake I shouldn’t have—all while not writing. I just didn’t have it in me. The shame buried itself in me and coupled with the inherent desire to leave who I was behind (as many teens do once they begin to grow into adulthood), the thought of putting pen to paper creatively would induce stress and nausea.

I went decades without writing creatively.

But it didn’t stop the ideas. Nor did I stop reading.

At 23 my life would change again. I had my son.

Now, even if I wanted to write, I didn’t have the time. Between raising a child as a single parent, working 2-3 jobs at any given time, attending classes (I decided to return to school at 26-27 and pursue a PhD), and remembering to sleep and feed myself, there weren’t enough hours in the day. But, even if I had the time, I still hadn’t processed the shame. So writing was easy to put aside and forget.

Again, the ideas never stopped. They just never found life on the page.

I wouldn’t feel safe enough to write again until I was 39.

The only friend I still talk to from those younger years participated in a yearly writing event I won’t name. Each year, she encouraged me to join. And each year, I declined. But at 39 my life had become so drastically different—I was happily married (and still am), ran a successful creative business (still do), had graduated with my PhD in psychology a couple years earlier, and maintained a happy, healthy relationship with my son. (My parents and their treatment has been the driving force for me to be nothing like them. I like to think I’ve succeeded. My son recently celebrated his 17th birthday and still lives with me and his bonus dad. Quite happily, I might add.)

When my friend asked if I would join in 2023, I said yes.

And I sat down and started pulling from all the ideas I’d gathered over the literal decades. Building worlds, characters, cultures, a cohesive storyline…

I thought about what I’d want in a story as a reader. I’ve always been drawn to fantasy. But the pristineness of most fantasy works—the cut and dry, clear line between light and dark, good and evil—made it less real. I wanted something that was wholly separate from the reality we’ve established, but with enough grit to be reminiscent on a deeper level.

Things aren’t black and white. We exist in a world of gray. Black and white are determined by our lived experience and are often skewed. I needed my work to reflect that. Sure, my debut can be brushed of as a silly little romance novel.

But those who get it, get it.

Thus, The Four Realms were born.

And I talked to my husband. Wanted him to know where I was mentally and what I was attempting. I talked to him about the shame and what writing once meant to me. I bared a part of myself I didn’t think I’d ever have to, cause I thought it was left in the past.

Part of me, a larger part than I’d care to admit, believed I’d be met with the same vitriol as I had then. Imagine the perspective-altering, ungrounding experience of being met with support, encouragement, and kindness after everything I’d endured.

I cried.

At first because I was ashamed to even talk about it. But by the end they were tears of disbelief.

Without the support of my husband, As Above, So Below wouldn’t exist.

I never intended to let anyone else read it. I wrote it to heal parts of myself and to prove to myself I could do it—and write smut no less.

In the end, my debut novel is me putting a dagger in the heart of a darkness that’s clung to me for years.

It’s a victory I won’t let anyone diminish.

Ever.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. I know it was a doozy of a first blog entry. But all of it is to say, don’t let anyone ever shame the love of something out of you. Write. Create worlds. Tell stories. Your work will resonate with more people than you think.